Common  Sense  Science. 


BY 


GRANT  ALLEN, 


▲UTHOB  OF   "  PHTSIOLOOICAL  JISTHETICS,"  "  FLOWEB8 
AND  TUEIR  rEDIU&BXS,"  KTC. 


BOSTON: 

D.  LOTHROP  AND  COMPANY, 
Fbanklin  a»d  Hawley  Stbbets. 


Copyright^  iSSb,  by 
D.   LOTHROP   AND  COMPANY. 


542 


ic 


E1.KCTROTYPHD  BY 

C.  J.  Pbters  &  Son,  Boston. 


PREFACE. 


These  little  essays,  now  specially  addressed  to 
an  American  public,  are  mostly  endeavors  to  place 
before  American  readers  some  of  the  latest  results 
of  modern  science,  in  simple,  clear,  and  intelligible 
language.  M^'self  born  in  America,  I  am  glad 
thus  on  a  return  visit  to  my  native  land  to  contri- 
,  bute  somewhat  to  the  formation  of  that  great 
mass  of  thought  which  must  ultimately  quicken 
and  inform  the  whole  world  of  civilization.  Dat- 
ing as  I  do  from  Thoreaii's  town,  I  trust  I  may 
have  caught  some  slight  echo  of  Thoreau's  inspi- 
ration. 

Concord,  Mass.,  June,  1886. 


COKTEKTS. 


Cbaptbb  Pagb 

I.  Second  Nature 7 

II.  Memory 19 

III.  Self-Consciousness 30 

IV.  Attainable  Ideals 41 

V.  Instinct  and  Reason  ........  54 

VI.  Sleep 65 

VII.  Holly  and  Mistletoe 76 

VIII.  Knowledge  and  Opinion 90 

IX.  The  Winter  Rest 101 

X.  Mountains 1:^2 

XI.  Home-Life 122 

XII.  The  Balance  of  Nature 133 

XIII.  The  Horse  and  his  Pedigree     ....  144 

XIV.  The  Best  Policy 155 

XV.  The  English  People 1G6 

XVI.  Big  and  Little 177 

XVII.  The  Origin  of  Bowing 189 

XVIII.  English  Chalk  Downs 201 

6 


f  CONTENTS. 

XIX.  Spring  Blossoms 212 

XX.  TuK  Eaktu's  Interior 223 

XXI.  Nuts  and  Nutting 233 

XXII.  Amusements 243 

XXIII.  TuE  Pride  of  Ignorance 252 

XXIV.  Inhabited  Worlds 265 

XXV.  Brick  and  Stone 276 

XXVI.  Evening  Flowers 286 

XXVII.  Beauty 297 

XXVIII.  Genius  and  Talent 308 


COMMON  SENSE  SCIENCE. 


I. 

SECOND  NATURE. 


We  have  all  said  a  hundred  times  over  that 
habit  is  a  second  nature  —  repeating  thoughtlessly 
the  acute  remark  of  some  nameless  and  forgotten 
popular  philosopher,  some  Peckham  Socrates  or 
some  Bloomsbury  Aristotle,  who  first  invented, 
no  doubt,  that  now  historical  phrase  ;  but  very 
few  of  us,  in  all  probability,  have  ever  reflected 
how  profoundly  true  and  brilliantly  luminous  is 
the  idea  wrapped  up  in  that  simple  and  familiar 
commonplace  of  the  present  generation.  It  is 
often  so  with  current  platitudes ;  beginning  as 
the  wise  and  wittj'  sayings  of  some  pregnant  and 
pithy  local  character,  they  are  picked  up  and  re- 
peated carelessly  by  other  people  who  never  even 
dream  themselves  of  realizing  their  full  meaning 
or  true  import,  and  they  pass  at  last  into  the  posi- 
tion of  proverbs,  bandied  about  daily  in  common 
conversation,  with  scarcely  a  relic  of  their  original 
savor  and  fresh  cleverness  remaining  in  them. 
And  yet  the  unknown  thinker,  whoever  he  may 

7 


8  SECOND  NATURE. 

have  been,  who  first  struck  out  the  lucid  concep- 
tion of  liabit  as  a  second  nature,  must  have  pos- 
sessed philosophical  and  psychological  powers  of 
no  mean  order.  For  he  touched  at  once,  as  if 
with  the  needle-point  of  fine  criticism,  the  very 
core  and  heart  of  the  matter ;  he  summed  up  in  a 
single  short  and  easy  epigrammatic  sentence  a 
whole  condensed  scientific  theory  of  habit  and 
repetition.  Habit  is  that  which  by  use  has  be- 
come natural  to  us ;  nature  is  habit  handed  down 
from  our  ancestors,  and  ingrained  bodily  in  the 
very  structure  of  our  brains  and  muscles  and  ner- 
vous systems. 

Let  us  look  first  at  a  few  of  the  more  extended 
manifestations  of  habit,  where  it  assumes  heredi- 
tarily the  very  guise  and  form  of  nature.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  children  of  jugglers,  rope-dancers, 
tumblers,  and  acrobats  can  be  much  more  easily 
trained  and  taught  their  fathers'  profession  than 
any  casual  ordinary  members  of  the  general  public. 
They  are  born,  in  fact,  with  quicker  fingers,  more 
supple  limbs,  nimbler  toes,  easier  muscles,  than 
the  vast  mass  of  their  fellow-citizens.  The  con- 
stant practice  of  hand  or  foot  has  made  a  real  dif- 
ference at  last  in  the  very  structure  and  fibres  of 
their  bodies  ;  and  this  difference  is  transmitted  to 
their  children,  so  that  the  conjurer,  like  the  poet, 
is  to  some  extent  born,  not  made.  It  is  just  the 
same  with  many  other  arts  and  handicrafts.     Chil- 


SECOND  NATURE.  9 

dren  descended  from  musical  families  are  nnisicil 
almost  from  their  very  birth  —  those  born  of 
parents  both  of  whom  have  constantly  played  the 
Iiarp  or  the  piano  exhibit  a  suppleness  and  ease  of 
movement  in  the  arms  and  fingers  entirely  wanting 
to  the  sons  and  daughters  of  agricultural  laborers 
or  unskilled  mechanics.  So,  too,  mountaineers  of 
many  generations'  standing  have  limbs  specially 
adapted  to  mountain  climbing  —  for  example,  the 
Indians  of  the  Andes  differ  immensely  in  the  pro- 
portions of  their  bones,  and  particularly  of  their 
thighs,  from  all  other  individuals  of  the  human 
race ;  and  from  babyhood  upward  this  originally 
acquired  difference  makes  itself  evidently  seen  in 
the  children  of  such  Indians.  In  these  and  num- 
berless other  like  cjises  we  recognize  at  once  that 
habit  has  at  last  produced  a  positive  physical  dif- 
ference in  the  individuals  of  the  particular  profes- 
sion or  tribe  concerned,  and  that  the  difference  so 
begotten  is  handed  down,  as  a  matter  of  original 
nature,  to  the  second  generation.  Our  nature,  in 
short,  depends  upon  the  structure  with  which  we 
are  at  birth  endowed ;  and  this  structure  itself  in 
turn  depends,  in  part  at  least,  upon  the  acquired 
haoits  and  functional  practices  of  our  parents  and 
our  remoter  ancestors. 

But  habit  itself,  within  a  single  person's  own 
lifetime,  also  tends  to  acquire  the  fixity  and  rigidity 
of  nature  —  becomes  in  time  almost  irresistible 


10  SECOXD  NATURE. 

and,  as  it  were,  autonriatic.  Look,  for  instance,  at 
the  smallest  matters  connected  with  the  way  we 
dress  ourselves,  cut  up  our  food,  or  perform  our 
most  ordinary  every-day  actions.  Everybody  has 
a  fixed  order  for  putting  on  his  socks;  either  he 
puts  on  the  right  foot  before  the  left,  or  vice  versa^ 
and  any  attempt  to  reverse  the  accustomed  order 
seems  to  him  not  only  awkward  but  almost  un- 
natural.  So,  again,  in  buttoning  liis  collar,  he 
either  buttons  the  right  half  over  the  left,  or  the 
left  over  the  right ;  cand,  whichever  he  does,  he 
does  it  regularly,  he  doesn't  fluctuate  casually 
from  morning  to  morning,  doing  it  now  one  way 
and  now  the  other.  A  ver}*  curious  difference 
exists  in  this  respect  betwec  i  men's  dress  and 
women's ;  tailors  always  pu',  the  buttons  on  the 
right  side  and  the  buttonholes  on  the  left;  while 
dressmakers  adopt  the  contrary  course,  putting 
the  buttons  left  and  the  buttonholes  right.  Now, 
if  a  man,  by  any  accident,  has  the  buttons  sewn 
on  any  garment  the  unfamiliar  way,  he  finds  Inm- 
self  as  awkward  as  a  baby  in  the  attempt  to  fasten 
them ;  while  if  a  woman,  on  the  other  hand,  puts 
on  a  man's  coat,  she  is  struck  at  once  by  what 
seems  to  her  the  clumsy  wa^  the  thing  has  to  be 
fastened  wrong  side  on.  In  each  case  the  habit 
of  buttoning  on  one  side  has  become  absolutely 
automatic ;  the  muscles  and  nerves  of  the  fingers 
have  adapted  themselves  to  the  accustomed  move- 


SECOND  NATURE.  11 

meiits,  and  are  incapable  of  performing  any  alter- 
native motion  with  equal  facility.  If  any  person 
watches  himself  for  a  single  day  in  this  manner,  he 
will  find  there  are  thousands  of  similar  little  actions 
he  performs  almost  unconsciously,  by  mere  organic 
routine,  each  step  in  the  process  being  followed, 
without  the  necessity  for  thinking,  by  the  next 
in  order,  exactly  as  the  words  and  rhymes  of  any 
familiar  piece  of  poetry  help  to  call  up  one  another 
in  memory,  without  the  slightest  conscious  effort. 
As  the  French  proverb  quaintly  puts  it,  he  who 
says  A  must  say  B  also. 

A  very  good  example  of  this  automatic  power 
of  habit  is  seen  in  the  way  we  almost  all  wind  up 
our  watches  every  evening.  At  a  certain  fixed 
stage  in  the  process  of  going  to  bed,  one  hand  seeks 
automatically  the  waistcoat  pocket  and  pulls  the 
watch  out;  the  other  dives  without  sense  of  effort 
into  the  recesses  of  the  purse  in  search  of  the 
watch-key  which  is  oftenest  recognized  not  by 
siglit  but  by  mere  feeling.  Then  the  watch  is 
opened  as  if  by  clockwork,  the  key  is  turned 
round  automatically  a  certain  familiar  number  of 
times,  and  duly  replaced  in  the  proper  pocket; 
the  face  is  shut  down  again  without  ever  thinking 
about  it;  and  finally  the  watch  itself  is  hung  up 
on  its  peg  or  laid  down  upon  the  table  by  the  bed- 
side, as  the  case  may  be,  while  all  the  time  perhaps 
we  have  been  steadily  reflecting  or  talking  about 


12  SECOND  NATURE. 

something  else,  and  liardly  even  been  aware  at  all 
of  what  it  was  we  were  nmscularly  engaged  upon. 
So  purely  mechanical  is  the  process,  indeed,  that 
people  who  do  not  habitually  dress  for  dinner 
generally  find  themselves  winding  up  their  watches 
whenever  they  take  off  their  waistcoats  to  assume 
the  civilized  swallow-tail  and  white  tie  of  modern 
society.  The  action  has  become  stereotyped  in 
the  nervous  sj'stem,  and  when  once  the  first  step 
of  the  series  is  taken  by  unbuttoning  tlie  coat,  all 
the  rest  follows  as  a  matter  of  course,  without  tlie 
necessity  for  deliberation  or  voluntary  effort. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  even  the  will  itself  is  not  strong 
enough  to  beat  such  chains  of  habit;  Dr.  Hughlings 
Jackson  mentions  a  curious  case  where  an  omni- 
bus horse  in  the  streets  of  London  obstinately 
refused  for  several  minutes  to  move  on  at  the 
combined  commands  of  his  driver  and  a  policeman. 
Shouts  and  whipping  were  all  in  vain  ;  the  creature 
declined  to  budge  an  inch  to  please  anybody.  At 
last  a  passenger  inside  suggested  mildly,  "Shut 
the  door,  conductor !  "  The  conductor  slammed 
the  door  with  a  bang,  and,  as  he  did  so,  rang  the 
bell.  That  familiar  sign  was  too  much  for  the 
obdurate  horse's  nervous  system.  Within  all  his 
experience,  when  a  new  passenger  got  in,  and  the 
omnibus  was  ready  to  start  again,  the  door  was 
slammed  and  the  bell  rung.  He  could  not  resist 
the  force  of  habit.     He  set  off  at  once  at  a  round 


SECOND  NATURE.  13 

pace,  as  if  acted  upon  magically  by  some  powerful 
spell,  and  forgot  at  once  all  about  his  sulky  temper. 
Much  the  same  sort  of  routine  practice  is  appar- 
ent in  the  lives  of  every  one  of  us.  An  immense 
number  of  little  acts  and  phrases  every  day  are 
performed  and  repeated  by  pure  force  of  habit. 
We  do  ten  thousand  habitual  things,  as  it  were, 
instinctively.  "How  do  you  do?"  we  ask  a  friend 
twenty  times  running,  if  we  meet  him  again ;  not 
because  we  want  to  assure  ourselves  as  to  the 
state  of  his  constitution  so  very  frequently,  but 
because  the  mere  act  of  meeting  him  calls  up  the 
words  mechanically  to  our  lips.  "Quite  well, 
thank  you,"  we  answer  thoughtlessly  to  casual 
inquiries  about  the  health  of  our  families,  even 
though  we  may  at  that  very  moment  be  anxiously 
running  to  get  the  doctor  on  the  sudden  outbreak 
of  scarlet  fever  in  the  bosom  of  the  household. 
In  the  same  way,  when  we  have  once  got  into  the 
habit  of  addressing  letters  to  a  particular  person 
at  a  particular  place,  the  mere  act  of  writing  his 
name  upon  an  envelope  is  followed  almost  irresis- 
tibly by  the  familiar  number  of  the  house  and 
direction  of  the  street  in  which  he  lives.  We 
may  have  been  accustomed  for  twenty  years  to 
send  all  our  notes  for  Jeremiah  Tompkins  to  37 
East  Fourteenth  Street,  New  York  City ;  if  in- 
creasing means  and  fashionable  desires  induce  our 
friend  to  remove  to  the  more  select  neighborhood 


14  SECOND  NATURE. 

of  Fifth  Avenue,  we  still  find  that,  whenever  we 
have  got  as  far  with  his  address  as  "Jeremiah 
Tompkins,  Esq.,"  the  pen  seems  of  itself  to  run 
on  into  37  East  Fourteenth  Street,  and  it  is  only 
with  an  effort  that  we  substitute  in  its  place  the 
new  address  in  the  more  dignified  up-town  district. 
Everybody  lias  had  abundant  examples  of  the  same 
sort  within  the  range  of  his  own  experience.  We 
change  our  banker,  let  us  say ;  but  as  soon  as  we 
write  on  an  envelope  the  words,  "  The  Manager," 
in  a  trice  the  name  of  the  old  bank  writes  itself 
down  against  our  will  in  the  place  of  the  new  one. 
We  go  away  from  home  on  a  holiday;  but  at  the 
head  of  our  letters  we  still  tend  to  begin  by  dating 
from  the  old  familiar  domestic  address.  At  the 
commencement  of  each  new  year,  how  hard  we  find 
it  to  alter  from  the  old  date  to  the  new,  though 
the  practice  has  run  but  for  a  single  twelvemonth ; 
while  every  married  lady  must  well  remember 
with  what  difficulty  she  altered  her  maiden  signa- 
ture to  the  one  forced  upon  her  by  the  not  wholly 
distasteful  necessities  of  marriage.  After  one  has 
written  {ill  one's  lifetime,  up  to  date,  "Very  affec- 
tionately yours,  Ethel  Smith,"  it  must  be  with  a 
sudden  pull-up  of  the  i)en  and  hand  that  one 
alters  it  at  last  by  an  effort  of  will  into  "  Ethel 
Montgomery." 

What  is  the  rational  and  underlying  cause  of 
this  force  of  habit?    Clearly,  the  nerves  and  brain 


SECOND  NATURE.  15 

elements  become  altered  by  iis.ige,  so  that  the 
directive  action  runs  more  easily  along  a  certain 
channel  than  along  any  other.  Very  few  acts  of 
our  lives  are  isolated  ;  most  of  tlieni  move  in  trains 
or  sequences  so  associated  that  one  immediately 
summons  up  another,  each  act  being,  so  to  speak, 
the  cue  or  call-word  for  the  next  in  order.  The 
nervous  energy  flows  most  easily  along  the  most 
accustomed  channels;  set  up  the  first  step  in  the 
sequence,  and  all  the  other  steps  follow  regularly, 
exactly  as  in  repeating  any  well  known  and  famil- 
iar formula.  Habit,  in  short,  becomes  a  second 
nature  because  it  modifies  to  some  extent  our 
original  minute  bodily  structure,  and  makes  nerves 
and  muscles  act  together  constantly  in  certain 
almost  indissoluble  chains  of  co-ordinated  action. 
The  oftener  we  do  a  thing,  the  easier  it  thus  be- 
comes ;  and  when  we  have  done  certain  things 
one  after  another,  over  and  over  again  for  many 
years,  the  tendency  of  the  first  to  call  up  the 
others  in  due  succession  becomes  at  last  all  but 
irresistible. 

There  is  some  reason,  indeed,  to  believe  that 
nature  itself  or  personal  idiosyncrasy  depends 
ultimately  upon  mere  habit  —  not,  of  course,  the 
habit  of  the  individual  himself  who  possesses  it, 
but  of  liis  earlier  ancestors,  paternal  and  maternal. 
It  is  now  fairly  well  proved  that  the  character  with 
which  every  one  of  us  is  endowed  at  birth  must 


16  SECOND  NATURE. 

be  regarded  as  a  direct  inheritatice  from  our  fathers 
and.  motliers,  our  grandfathers  and  grandmothers, 
in  varying  degrees  of  compounded  qualities. 
Hence,  while  habit  is  a  second  nature,  it  may  also 
be  said  that  nature  in  turn  is  a  secondary  habit. 
What  we  are  by  nature  we  largely  or  even  entirely 
derive  from  the  various  acquired  habits  of  our 
ancestors ;  what  we  make  ourselves,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  habit  we  largely  pass  on  to  the  natures 
of  our  children  and  our  remoter  descendants. 
And  this  consideration  renders  the  awful  respon- 
sibility of  the  formation  of  habits  even  more  pain- 
fully evident  than  ever.  It  is  a  serious  enough 
thought  that  ever}'^  wrong  act  indulged  in,  every 
weakness  gratified,  every  temptation  yielded  to, 
helps  to  stereotype  the  evil  practice  itself  in  the 
very  fibres  and  tissues  of  our  bodies.  But  it 
is  more  serious  still  to  consider  that  every  habit 
thus  thoughtlessly  or  wickedly  formed  is  liable  to 
be  transmitted  to  our  children  after  us.  Drunk- 
enness, for  example,  as  we  all  know,  tends  to 
show  itself  as  a  hereditary  vice.  Well,  then,  every 
act  of  culpable  yielding  to  the  temptation  to  drink 
to  excess  is  not  only  a  step  to  the  formation  of  an 
ingrained  habit  in  the  person  himself,  but  also  a 
step  towards  the  setting  up  of  a  hereditary  ten- 
dency to  drunkenness  in  his  children  and  descen- 
dants. On  the  other  hand,  the  more  strongly  any 
such  besetting  sin  assails  us  by  nature  —  the  more 


SECOND  NATURE.  17 

deeply  implanted  it  may  be  in  the  very  form  and 
structure  of  our  nervous  system  —  the  greater 
is  the  necessity  for  constant  watchfulness  against 
its  insidious  attacks,  and  the  deeper  the  importance 
of  guarding  against  it  by  every  means  that  lies  in 
our  power.  To  form  a  bad  habit  is  of  all  things 
most  dangerous  when  we  find  ourselves  already 
prone  to  the  habit  by  very  nature.  By  way  of 
compensation,  however,  we  may  reflect  with  pleas- 
ure that  every  temptation  resisted,  every  weakness 
thwarted,  every  active  exercise  of  self-control  en- 
sured, helps  to  build  up  a  habit  of  resistance,  and 
makes  victory  over  the  evil  more  easy  in  future. 
Exactly  as  by  frequently  writing  the  new  address 
of  the  friend  who  has  moved  we  learn  at  last  to 
forget  the  old  one,  so  by  frequently  and  constantly 
taking  the  better  course  of  action  we  learn  at  last, 
almost  without  an  effort,  to  avoid  the  worse.  The 
right  habit  becomes,  as  it  were,  a  second  nature ; 
as  in  the  case  of  the  most  upright  of  modern  phil- 
osophers, about  whom  Sir  Henry  Taj'lor  has  acutely 
observed  that  he  hardly  seemed  to  be  even  consci- 
entious—  it  appeared  as  though  he  acted  right 
under  all  circumstances  quite  automatically  and 
without  the  possibility  of  doing  otherwise.  There 
are  people,  indeed,  descended  from  exceptionally 
fine  stocks  on  either  side,  of  whom  it  has  been  well 
said  that  they  are  almost  born  *'  organically  moral " : 
the  impulse  to  act  right  seems  in  their  inherited 


18  SECOND  NATURE. 

natures  to  have  completely  outweighed  the  im- 
pulse to  act  wrong ;  and  what  many  of  the  rest  of 
us  do  with  a  voluntary  effort  these  happily  consti- 
tuted and  beautiful  characters  seem  to  do,  so  to 
speak,  mechanically  and  unconsciously. 


II. 

MEMORY. 

Of  all  the  wonderful  miracles  of  nature,  an- 
imate and  inanimate,  there  is  perhaps  none  so 
perfectly  and  inscrutably  marvellous  as  the  hu- 
man memory.  We  do  not  now  refer  to  the 
specially  cultivated  and  trained  memories  of  ex- 
ceptional geniuses,  the  Mezzofantis  who  can  speak 
two  hundred  languages,  or  the  Macaulays  who 
can  repeat  by  heart  whole  pages  and  volumes  of 
prose  or  poetry;  we  are  thinking  merely  of  the 
common  average  human  being,  the  Tom,  Dick, 
and  Harry  that  we  meet  at  every  turn,  and  whose 
simple  native  power  of  recollection  and  remi- 
niscence seems  to  us  almost  the  very  greatest 
marvel  in  the  whole  vast  museum  of  the  physical 
universe.  For  even  the  humblest  and  most  or- 
dinary memory  is  stored  and  stocked  in  all  its 
innumerable  cells  and  pigeon-holes  with  such  an 
endless  collection  of  facts  and  ideas  as  might  well 
appall  the  stout  heart  of  the  most  ardent  statis- 
tician. Indeed  it  is  probable  that  most  people, 
for  want  of  analytical  habits,  immensely  under- 
estimate  the   extraordinary   storehouse   of    their 

19 


to  MEMORY. 

own  memories.  We  believe  the  merest  child  or 
the  most  ignorant  peasant  knows  and  remembers 
a  number  and  variety  of  things  which,  when  all 
put  together,  ought  easily  to  surprise  the  most 
learned  and  thouglitful  of  men.  Where  the  room 
can  be  found  "in  one  small  brain"  to  stow  away 
80  many  facts  and  fancies  is  a  real  puzzle  of  no 
email  magnitude. 

Look  first,  for  example,  at  the  mere  wealth  and 
copiousness  of  language.  Every  one  of  us  is  fully 
acquainted  with  his  mother-tongue  to  the  extent 
of  at  least  three  or  four  thousand  words,  every 
one  of  these  words  answering  to  an  idea,  and 
calling  up  in  his  mind  the  picture  of  an  object  or 
action  with  which  it  is  associated.  Think  of  the 
number  of  visible  things  alone  of  which  we  know 
and  remember  the  names.  Let  us  take  a  single 
small  group  of  objects  only  —  say  fruits  —  and 
consider  of  how  many  such  we  know  the  names, 
and  can  immediately  conjure  up  a  mental  picture. 
To  begin  with,  there  are  strawberries,  raspberries, 
gooseberries,  currants,  and  all  the  similar  com- 
mon garden  favorites.  Then  there  are  black- 
berries, whortleberries,  haws,  sloes,  and  an  endless 
succession  of  wild  kinds.  Next,  the  orchard  sup- 
plies us  with  apples,  pears,  peaches,  plums,  apri- 
cots, nectarines,  quinces,  and  medlars.  Once 
more,  there  are  the  imported  exotic  kinds,  oranges 
and  lemons,  pine-apples  and  dates,  figs  and  cocoa- 


MEMORY.  a 

nuts.  And  so  on  through  an  almost  endless  cata- 
logue. Tlie  bare  names  of  tlie  fruits  alone  per- 
fectly well  known  to  every  reader  would  probably 
fill  the  entire  length  usually  devoted  to  these 
essays.  For  have  we  not  entirely  omitted  the 
whole  great  family  of  melons  and  gourds,  veg- 
etable marrows  and  cucumbers,  the  mulberry  and 
the  tomato,  the  grape  and  the  cherry,  and  so  on 
in  infinite  variety  ?  WliJitever  group  of  things 
we  begin  to  think  of,  we  shall  find  that  just  the 
same  wealth  and  variety  of  common  every-day 
knowledge  occurs  to  us;  each  of  us  knows  liun- 
dreds  of  animals  and  birds  and  fish  and  insects ; 
each  of  us  is  acquainted  with  the  names  of  so  vast 
a  number  of  diverse  objects  as  would  fill  a  whole 
volume  of  close-packed  type,  or  exhaust  the  re- 
sources of  a  considerable  dictionary. 

Then  again  consider  the  fact  that,  besides  the 
mere  names  Miemselves,  we  are  all  acquainteJ. 
with  innumerable  points  in  the  appearance  or 
habits  of  all  the  objects  thus  mentally  enumerated. 
Take  a  single  example  out  of  all  the  number  thus 
quoted  —  say  the  first,  a  strawberry,  and  reflect 
for  a  moment  how  many  facts  about  its  structure 
or  growth  the  merest  child  or  ignoramus  can  im- 
mediately remember.  Almost  all  of  us  know,  of 
course,  that  the  strawberry  grows  upon  a  low  plant 
or  vine,  that  all  its  leaves  are  arranged  in  sets  of 
three  leaflets  each,  that  its  flower  is  white  and  of 


22  MEMORY. 

a  particular  shape  and  appearance,  that  the  berry 
is  produced  from  the  centre  of  the  blossom,  that 
it  begins  by  being  hard,  green,  and  sour,  and 
grows  soft,  red,  sweet,  and  luscious  as  it  gradually 
ripens.  Most  of  us  can  readily  recall  at  once  the 
look  and  taste  of  the  strawberry,  its  size  and 
shape,  its  color  without  and  within,  the  little 
green  "  hull,"  or  "  hank,"  formed  by  the  calyx, 
and  the  tiny  brown  seeds  dotted  in  pits  over  its 
whole  rosy  surface.  Here  is  a  vast  collection  of 
facts,  easily  remembered  by  almost  everybody, 
about  a  single  small  English  fruit.  If  we  take  a 
bigger  object,  such  as  an  elephant,  the  range  of 
memory  in  the  same  way  is  still  more  marvellous. 
At  once  we  have  conjured  up  before  our  mind's 
e3'^e  the  i)icture  of  that  vast,  unwieldy  animal,  of 
his  head  and  trunk,  his  huge  lopping  ears,  his 
mouth  and  tusks,  his  big  legs  and  crushing  feet, 
his  thick  skin,  his  sleepy  eyes,  his  stumpy  tail,  his 
queer  gait,  his  cunning  manners.  If  we  try  to 
think  of  all  the  facts  we  know  about  him  other- 
wise, his  native  home,  the  mode  in  which  he  is 
hunted,  the  importance  of  his  ivory,  the  objects 
made  from  it,  his  use  as  a  beast  of  burden,  the 
"  castles "  or  howdahs  which  he  carries  on  his 
back,  his  appearance  at  the  Zoo  or  in  the  travel- 
ling wild-beast  show,  and  so  forth  throughout  a 
hundred  like  particulars,  it  is  fairly  astonishing 
how  wide  a  range  of  facts  every  child  or  fool  pos- 


MEMORY. 


sessea  about  tlie  history  and  habits  of  that  one 
great  Asiatic  and  African  animal. 

Once  more,  not  only  do  we  know  the  names  of 
80  many  distinct  objects  or  creatures,  z  the 
attributes  or  qualities  at  once  summoned  up  in 
our  minds  by  the  names  themselves,  but  we  also 
know  and  remember  endless  groups  and  colloca- 
tions of  words,  current  phrases,  or  stock  sayings, 
all  of  which  we  can  employ  in  conversation  when- 
ever they  are  needed,  with  the  same  ease  and  cer- 
tainty as  we  employ  the  separate  words  them- 
selves of  which  they  are  compounded.  Yet  each 
of  these  common  formulas  of  speech  has  had  to  be 
unconsciously  learnt  and  remembered  quite  as 
truly,  though  not  with  so  much  difficulty,  as  the 
multiplication-table  or  the  names  and  dates  of  the 
kings  of  England.  We  do  not  merely  mean  such 
invariable  and  frequent  phrases  as  "  How  do  you 
do  ?  "  or  "  If  you  please,"  but  rather  those  more 
subtle  proverbial  elements  of  conversation  of 
which  each  one  of  us  possesses,  without  even 
knowing  it,  an  immense  assortment.  P^or  in- 
stance, we  say  "as  black  as  a  crow,"  or  "  as  black 
as  ink,"  or  "  black  as  my  hat,"  or  "  as  black  as  a 
negro."  "As  white  as  snow,"  "as  green  as 
grass,"  "  as  blue  as  the  sky,"  "  as  red  as  a  rose," 
are  all  real  compound  elements  of  everybody's 
every-day  vocabulary.  "As  old  as  the  hills" 
comes  naturally  to  our  lips  in  speaking  of  age ; 


24  MEMORY. 

"  as  dark  as  pitch  "  in  speaking  of  a  moonless 
evening.  "  As  drunk  as  a  lord "  is  answered 
and  balanced  by  "  as  sober  as  a  judge " ;  "  as 
merry  as  a  grig  "  finds  its  true  counterpart  in 
"  as  jolly  as  a  sandboy."  Sometimes  we  have  half 
a  dozen  alternative  forms  for  expressing  the  same 
degree  of  comparison  ;  "  as  dead  as  a  door-nail," 
"as  dead  as  a  stone,"  "as  dead  as  mutton,"  and 
"  as  dead  as  Julius  Caesar,"  are  all  alike  familiar 
to  every  one  of  us.  "  As  soft  as  silk  "  immedi- 
ately suggests  as  "  hard  as  a  stone,"  and  "  as  cold 
as  ice "  is  contradicted  at  once  bv  "  as  hot  as 
blazes."  Probably  a  single  person's  ordinary 
speech,  if  carefully  watched  for  a  whole  twelve- 
month, would  yield  several  hundreds  or  thousands 
of  stock  phrases  framed  on  this  comparative  model 
alone ;  and  there  are  dozens  more  sets  of  phrases 
equally  common,  running  in  the  same  way  in  big 
batches.  For  example,  we  might  look  at  the 
stock  phrases  connected  with  sleep  alone,  such  as 
"  to  take  forty  winks,"  "  to  go  to  the  land  of 
Nod,"  "to  be  in  the  arms  of  Morpheus,"  "to  have 
a  I'ttle  SLOoze,"  "to  go  to  Bedfordshire,"  and  so 
forth,  till  the  reader's  patience  is  fairly  tired.  Or, 
again,  we  might  instance  the  common  sentences 
used  about  death,  "  to  go  to  his  last  home,"  "  to 
be  gathered  to  his  fathers,"  "  to  shuffle  off  this 
mortal  coil,"  "  to  go  the  way  of  all  flesh,"  *'  to  fall 
asleep,'  " to  join  the  majority,"  " to  end  his  days," 


MEMORY.  25 

"  to  go  to  Davy  Jones'  locker."  There  is  hardly 
an  act  or  an  idea  in  life  about  which  we  have  not 
all  of  us  unconsciously  gathered  a  whole  vast  col- 
lection of  proverbial  phrases  which  we  trot  out 
and  bring  into  use  from  time  to  time  as  occasion 
offers. 

Then,  again,  there  is  the  extraordinary  variety 
of  faces  and  features  that  we  all  remember,  both 
those  personally  known  to  us  and  those  merely 
recognized  and  remembered  as  belonging  to  neigh- 
bors or  fellow-townsmen.  It  is  probable  that 
almost  every  human  being  recollects  more  or  less 
distinctly,  by  name  or  face,  not  less  than  seven  or 
eight  thousand  separate  i)ersons.  This  seems, 
indeed,  at  first  sight,  an  excessive  estimate,  es- 
pecially for  the  inhabitants  of  small  villages  and 
out-of-the-way  places,  where  the  whole  population 
is  small  and  fixed  ;  but  it  has  been  arrived  at  by 
careful  calculation  and  observation  of  cases,  and 
on  the  average  of  instances  it  is  probably  true. 
For  one  has  to  remember  not  only  all  the  mem- 
bers of  one's  own  family  and  one's  personal  ac- 
quaintance, but  also  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
other  people,  with  whom  our  intercourse  has  been 
but  very  slight,  yet  quite  suflicient  to  make  one 
recollect  them.  Think  only  of  all  the  servants, 
landladies,  tradesmen,  assistants,  policemen,  cab- 
men, errand-boys,  and  hangers-on  generally  of 
whom  one  has  a  distinct  and  recognizable  mental 


26  MEMORY. 

picture.  Think  of  the  numberless  people  with 
whom  one  has  travelled  by  rail  or  sea,  and  whose 
personality  one  can  still  more  or  less  faintly  re- 
produce to  one's  self.  An  excellent  test  for  the 
enormous  mass  of  human  beings  one  can  thus 
readily  remember  is  to  take  a  single  summer  holi- 
day, spent  in  an  unfamiliar  town  or  village,  and 
recall  mentally  all  the  people  of  whom  one  has 
still  a  definite  recollection.  There  was  the  boy 
who  lielped  down  the  luggage  from  the  cab  ;  and 
there  was  Mrs.  Smith,  the  obliging  hostess ;  and, 
there  was  the  bent  old  man  who  sat  in  the  bar; 
and  there  was  the  fat  landlord  wlio  discussed  [)oli- 
tics  over  his  glass  of  toddy;  there  was  Sullivan, 
the  boatman,  who  had  once  been  a  coast  guard ; 
and  there  was  the  rosy-faced  rector,  wlio  preached 
on  Sunday;  and  there  were  the  rector's  five  pretty 
daughters;  and  there  was  the  pale  curate  who 
was  so  much  snubbed  by  the  youngest  and  pretti- 
est of  tliem.  Why,  it  isn't  difiicult  (we  speak  by 
book)  to  remember  a  hundred  and  fifty  distinct 
persons  all  connected  with  those  short  three  days 
at  a  seaside  watering-place  !  And,  when  we  come 
to  multiply  such  instances  by  tlie  hundred  or  the 
thousand,  we  see  at  once  how  vast  and  varied  is 
the  number  of  individual  human  beings  held  in 
memory  by  ever}""  ordinary  modern  man. 

Equally  astonishing,  when  one  comes  to  look  at 
the   matter   closely,   is    the    immense    variety   of 


MEMORY.  27 

Scripture  texts  and  phrases,  fragmei  *s  of  poetry, 
stock  quotations,  bits  of  hymns,  and  other  frag- 
mentary portions  of  literature  firmly  held  in 
everybody's  memory.  Who  does  not  know  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  familiar  tags,  such  as 
"To  be  or  not  to  be,"  "Man  wants  but  little  liere 
below,"  "  All  flesh  is  grass,"  "  Let  dogs  deliglit  to 
bark  and  bite,"  and  so  forth,  ad  infinitum?  Add 
to  these  the  general  stock  of  common  proveibs, 
"A  bird  in  the  liand,"  "A  rolling  stone,"  "Two 
of  a  trade,"  "The  early  bird,"  and  all  the  rest  of 
it,  and  then  consider  how  vast  is  the  accumulation 
to  which  they  each  separately  bear  witness.  Or 
consider  once  more  our  acquaintance  with  the 
names,  places,  and  facts  of  Scripture  history,  and 
then  of  history  and  geography  generally.  Try, 
for  example,  to  recall  to  one's  self  all  that  every 
child  knows  and  recollects  about  the  Chinese 
Empire.  Think  first  of  the  individual  Chinaman, 
with  his  yellow  skin,  his  oblique  almond  eyes,  his 
twisted  pig-tail,  his  queer  dress,  his  clumsy  shoes, 
his  solenni  demeanor;  think  then  of  his  numda- 
rins,  his  emperor,  his  small-footed  wife,  his  quaint 
little  children.  Recollect  his  porcelain,  his  wil- 
low-pattern plates,  his  curious  drawing,  his  aerial 
perspective.  Recall  his  strange  writing,  as  seen 
on  china  or  tea-chests,  and  let  that  in  turn  bring 
up  to  memory  his  tea,  his  silk,  his  ojjium,  his 
lacquer-ware.     Then   remember   his   religion,  his 


28  MEMOli  Y. 

temples,  his  pagodfis,  his  joss-paper ;  and  so  con- 
tinue till  all  one  knows  about  himself,  his  coun- 
try, his  manufactures,  and  his  customs  is  fairly 
exhausted,  down  even  to  his  rice  and  his  chop- 
sticks, his  ivory  carvings,  and  his  children's  toys. 
Why,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  if  one  were 
to  write  down  deliberately  in  black  and  white  all 
that  an  average  schoolgirl  of  ten  years  old  knows 
about  China  and  Chinamen,  it  would  run  to  a  list 
of  several  hundred  facts,  of  which  we  have  here 
briefly  enumerated  in  passing  but  twenty-eight! 
If  anybody  doubts  it,  let  him  take  a  pencil  and 
paper  for  himself,  and,  after  rigorous  self-examina- 
tion, allowing  one  point  to  lead  up  to  another, 
write  down  in  the  form  of  a  numbered  catalogue 
every  distinct  and  separate  item  he  can  possibly 
remember  about  the  Chinese,  their  land,  and 
their  habits.  He  will  probably  be  astonished  him- 
self at  the  result  of  the  experiment.  For,  recol- 
lect that  we  have  said  nothing  at  all  here  about 
Peking  and  Cauton,  Shanghai  and  Hon  Kong,  the 
Summer  Palace  and  the  great  rivers,  the  square- 
holed  money  and  the  vermilion  pencil,  the  roast 
rats  and  the  floating  rafts,  or  a  thousand  other 
familiar  commonplaces  of  undigested  popular 
knowledge.  The  truth  is  that  every  individual 
human  being  carries  about  with  him  in  his  own 
head,  without  ever  suspecting  it,  a  vast  collection 
of  jjigeon-holed  facts  and  fancies,  a  store  of  mem- 


MEMORY.  29 

ory  such  as  may  fairly  surprise  its  owner  liimself 
as  soon  as  he  begins  really  to  examine  the  marvel- 
lous wealth  and  variety  of  its  contents.  Cell 
after  cell  and  fibre  after  fibre  in  the  numberless 
minute  elements  of  the  brain  have  been  indissolu- 
bly  connected  by  channels  of  nervous  communica- 
tion, impressed  and  modified  by  acts  and  ideas, 
till  the  whole  has  become  a  supreme  register  of 
past  experiences,  ready  to  be  called  up  at  a 
moment's  notice  by  the  wonderful  power  of 
association. 


III. 

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

If  we  were  asked  to  state  in  a  single  word  what 
purely  personal  cliaracteristic  has  probably  caused 
most  misery  to  its  innocent  victims  all  the  world 
over  in  tliis  sublunary  life  of  ours,  we  are  inclined 
to  think  we  should  answer  at  once,  not  avarice,  or 
jealous}^  or  temper,  or  love,  but  quite  simply  that 
commonplace  feeling,  self-consciousness.  To  be 
sure,  love,  we  will  admit  —  at  the  risk  of  being 
considered  horribly  cynical  —  runs  it  a  neck-aud- 
neck  ]'ace  for  that  bad  pre-eminence;  for  who 
does  not  remember  that  half  the  tragedies  and 
terrors  in  this  earthly  life  of  ours  have  bad  their 
ultimate  basis  and  groundwork  of  being  in  the 
tender  passion?  We  know  at  once  that  our  girls 
have  reached  tlie  age  of  love-making  when  we  see 
their  eyes  pretty  constantly  red  with  crying  in  the 
early  morning.  Nevertheless,  even  in  spite  of  this 
most  serious  competitor  for  the  post  of  honor  as  a 
general  misery-monger,  we  are  still  disposed  to 
place  self-consciousness  in  the  very  first  and  fore- 
most rank  as  a  common  cause  of  human  distress. 
To  every  one  person  who  suffers  from  the  pangs 

30 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  81 

of  jealousy,  of  fear,  or  of  unrequited  affection, 
tliere  are  a  hundred  who  suffer  from  the  terrible, 
pressing,  and  ever-present  demon  of  mere  self-con- 
sciousness. 

It  is  not  a  vice,  or,  at  least,  only  a  very  small 
one ;  it  is  not  even  a  failing,  or  a  weakness,  or  a 
])eccadillo ;  it  is,  after  all,  a  pure  misfortune.  It 
injures  nobody  but  the  person  himself  who  feels  it 
—  or  perhaps  one  ought  rather  to  say  the  {)erson 
lierself  who  is  its  subject ;  for,  tliough  men  and 
women  alike  suffer  in  secret  from  this  horrible 
scourge,  it  chooses  its  victims  most  particularly 
among  the  young,  the  timid,  the  modest,  and  the 
beautiful  of  the  fairer  sex.  A  phiLanthropist  who 
had  it  in  his  power  to  abolish,  if  he  chose,  with  a 
single  wave  of  his  hand  either  small-pox  or  self- 
consciousness,  would  probably  do  more  in  the  end 
to  diminish  human  suffering  and  to  increase  hu- 
man hap[)iness  if  he  elected  to  get  rid  by  a  heroic 
choice  of  the  less  obtrusive  but  more  insidious 
and  all-pervading  disease.  For  small-pox,  at  the 
worst,  attacks  only  a  very  insignificant  fraction  of 
the  whole  community ;  while  every  second  person 
that  one  meets  in  society,  especially  below  the  age 
of  fifty  years,  is  a  confirmed  sufferer  from  the 
pangs  of  self-consciousness. 

Of  course,  to  be  self-conscious  is  a  very  different 
thing  indeed  from  being  conceited  or  egotistic, 
and  still  more  different  from  being  absolutely  and 


32  SFLF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

utterly  selfish.  Selfishness  is  a  real  vice  —  or,  to 
/  speak  more  correctly,  it  is  all  the  vices  rolled  into 
one.  The  purely  selfish  man  is  incapable  of  almost 
any  form  of  active  virtue,  except,  perhaps,  truth- 
fulness ;  he  is  the  meanest  and  smallest  and  most 
despicable  of  created  beings.  Egotism,  again,  is 
a  far  less  serious  though  a  more  ridiculous  failing 
than  selfishness ;  the  egotist,  though  not  perhaps 
unkindly  or  ungenerous,  thinks  perpetually  of 
himself  as  the  centre  and  focus  of  all  other  peo- 
ple's thoughts,  the  happy  cynosure  of  neighboring 
eyes.  He  makes  himself  absurd  by  the  over- 
strained importance  he  attaches  to  his  own  dignity 
and  position  ;  he  considers  himself  the  handsomest 
man  in  the  whole  room  ;  he  admires  the  cleverness 
of  his  own  conversation ;  he  laughs  the  loudest  at 
his  own  poor  jokes.  His  complacency,  however, 
ridiculous  as  it  really  is,  gives  immense  pleasure 
to  himself,  and  is,  after  all,  only  a  source  of  inno- 
cent amusement  to  other  people.  If  he  gets 
laughed  at,  it  is  behind  his  back;  and  the  light 
shafts  of  other  men's  ridicule  never  pierce  the  thick 
hide  of  his  pachydermatous  personality.  So  far  as 
his  own  feelings  alone  are  concerned,  the  egotist 
is  a  man  rather  to  be  envied  than  to  be  pitied, 
a  subject  for  laughing  congratulation  rather  than 
for  sympathetic  condolence  and  brotherly  regret. 

It  is  far  otherwise  with  the  miserable  victim  of 
the  self-conscious  torturing-rack.     He  or  she  has 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  33 

no  snch  profound  conviction  of  immense  superior- 
ity to  the  common  herd  of  ordinary  people.  Your 
nervous  young  man  may  reallj'  liave  brains,  com- 
mon-sense, fair  talking  powers,  and  agreeable 
manners;  but  the  moment  he  finds  himself  in  the 
society  of  his  fellow-creatures  he  becomes  a  prey 
at  once  to  this  hideous  form  of  introspective  anal- 
ysis, this  inability  to  divest  himself  for  a  moment 
of  his  own  abiding  and  obtrusive  personality.  Let 
the  talk  turn  on  politics  or  literature,  on  art  or  on 
gossip,  he  is  not  thinking  of  the  presidential  cam- 
l)aign  or  the  state  legislature,  of  Mr.  Gladstone  or 
the  Redistribution  Bill,  of  Tenn3'son's  new  poem 
or  Howells'  new  novel,  of  the  fashionable  picture 
at  the  Academy  or  the  remarkable  sensation  at 
the  Lyceum,  of  j\L-s.  Smith's  nice  little  dinner  or 
of  what  a  bad  match  Ethel  Jones  is  going  to  make 
with  that  young  fellow  in  the  Hundred  and  Fifti- 
eth ;  all  these  subjects,  which  are  being  discussed 
with  so  much  animation  and  verve  all  around  him, 
fall  absolutely  flat  upon  his  inattentive  ear ;  what 
he  is  really  thinking  of  is  simply  himself,  and 
whether  other  people  are  or  are  not  tliinking  about 
him.  If  he  ventures  a  critical  remark  as  to  the 
conduct  of  the  hero  in  the  latest  romance,  or  en. 
deavors  to  defend  Ethel  Jones  against  the  charge 
of  imprudence  in  marrying  a  young  man  without 
a  penny,  he  cares  really  in  his  own  heart  less  than 
nothing  about  either  hero  or  young  lady  ;  what  he 


84  SELF'COySCIOUHNESS. 

cares  for  is  in  the  lust  resort  merelv  the  effect  his 
reimirk  may  be  siipposeil  to  liave  upon  the  sin- 
loundiiig  listeners.  Not  that  lie  is  striving  after 
effect,  poor  fellow!  lie  is  far  too  nervous  un<l 
self-conscious  for  that.  All  that  lie  desires  is, 
without  absolutely  effacing  and  annihilating  him- 
self, to  escape  notice  in  the  unnumbered  crowd  of 
his  fellow-creatures.  lie  wishes  to  live  what  [)oets 
advise  us  all,  a  life  of  obscurity.  If  he  makes  a 
remark,  it  is  dragged  out  of  him  by  a  stern  sense 
of  tiie  absolute  necessity  of  saying  something. 
He  speaks,  not  because  he  has  something  he  de- 
sires to  say,  but  because  he  feels  other  people 
expect  him  to  contribute  his  poor  little  quotum  to 
the  passing  conversation. 

In  the  case  of  women  the  miseries  of  self- 
consciousness  are  even  more  poignant  and  more 
unendurable.  A  girl  may  be  pretty,  engaging, 
attractive,  modest ;  she  may  have  a  sweet  disposi- 
tion and  a  sufficient  stock  of  intelligence  for  the 
world  at  large,  as  at  present  constituted ;  but,  if 
once  this  terrible  demon  of  self-reflection  takes 
possession  of  her,  she  will  never  know  another 
hour  of  quiet  happiness  in  the  society  of  her 
unsuspecting  fellow-creatures.  How  am  I  look- 
ing? What  are  they  thinking  of  me?  Am  I 
pale  to-night?  Have  I  an  unbecoming  coJ/L)r? 
Am  T  saying  everything  I  ought  to  say?  Have 
I  put  my  foot  into  it  with   anybody?     Oh,  how 


SELF-CONSCIO  US  NESS.  35 

niisenible  I  feel!  If  I  were  only  safe  at  home 
agiiiu  I 

Oh,  if  I  were  drad  now, 
Or  up  in  my  bed,  now, 
To  cover  my  head  now, 
And  have  a  good  cry ! 

What  girl  is  there  who  has  not  at  some  time  or 
other  experienced  this  horrible,  sinking,  inexpres- 
sibly uncomfortable  feeling? 

It  is  young  men  and  young  women,  indeed,  who 
are  the  chief  victims  of  the  self-conscious  mania. 
In  youth,  and  especially  before  marriage,  lads  and 
girls  are  naturally  anxious  to  please  and  produce 
a  good  impression  upon  one  another.  In  perfectly 
healthy,  unsophisticated  persons,  such  a  desire 
merely  takes  the  unimpeachable  form  of  spright- 
liness  and  a  pleasing  effort  to  make  themselves 
agreeable  to  other  people.  But  in  nervous  and 
self-regarding  natures  it  takes  the  form  of  a  con- 
stant and  ever-present  prying  into  the  reception 
that  others  are  giving  them,  —  a  pervading 
consciousness  of  self,  which  never  leaves  them 
even  in  the  midst  of  the  most  distracting  con- 
versation or  the  most  engrossing  society.  In- 
stead of  thinking  about  what  is  l)eing  said  and 
what  is  being  done,  they  are  thinking  all  the 
time  of  what  is  being  thought  of  their  own  per- 
sonality. 

And  herein  consists  the  real  error  and  blunder 


36  SELF-CONSClOUSNKiiS. 

of  the  self-conscious  mind  —  the  error  of  attril)nt- 
ing  a  vastly  exaggerated  importance  to  its  own 
individual  self.  In  the  last  resort,  self-conscious- 
ness is  only  egotism  turned  inside  out;  while  the 
conceited  man  is  a  contented  and  well-satisfied 
egotist,  the  self-conscious  man  is  a  discontented 
and  self-distrustful  egotist.  The  only  rational 
cure  for  this  great  radical  evil  lies  in  the  earnest 
endeavor  rightly  to  appreciate  one's  own  individ- 
ual insignificance  as  a  unit  in  the  great  complex 
mass  of  human  society.  When  tiie  self-conscious 
man  goes  into  a  room,  he  fancies  that  every  one  of 
the  people  in  it  is  thinking  about  him,  watching 
him,  observing  him,  criticising  liis  every  word  and 
movement  and  action  with  the  same  eagerness  that 
he  feels  about  them  himself.  But  they  are  not ; 
they  are  each  of  them  doing  exactly  the  same  as  he 
is  —  thinking  of  themselves,  and  wondering  what 
opinion,  in  Heaven's  name,  he  is  forming  about 
them !  "  What  a  dreadfully  silly  thing  I  said  to 
Mr.  Brown  !  "  poor  Miss  Jones  exclaims  to  herself, 
with  crimson  cheeks,  in  the  solitude  of  her  cham- 
ber, after  she  comes  back  from  the  Jenkinses'  little 
evening-party.  "  What  on  earth  can  he  ever  have 
thought  of  me  !  "  "  What  a  fool  I  made  of  myself 
to  that  nice  little  Miss  Jones ! "  Mr.  Brown 
observes,  contemplatively,  as  he  exchanges  his 
evening-shoes  for  the  comfortable  slip[)ers()f  unre- 
claimed bachelorhood.     "How  dreadfully  silly  she 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  87 

must  roally  think  me!"  But  neither  says  what 
a  fool  tlie  other  was  ;  each  is  engaged  in  tliiukiiig, 
not  of  his  or  her  neiglibc)r,  but  of  tlie  impression 
his  or  her  neighbor  has  formed  of  himself  or  her- 
self. We  are  all  perpetuiilly  pla3'ing  at  cross- 
questions  and  crooked  answers.  Each  is  absurdly 
anxious  about  the  efVect  j)roduced  by  himself,  but 
absurdly  cool  and  disdainful  about  the  effect  pro- 
duced by  others. 

Whoever  wishes  to  be  cured  of  this  ceaseless 
internal  torture  should  school  liimself  carefully  in 
the  habit  of  remembering  that  everybody  else  has 
his  own  doubts  and  fears  and  hopes  and  peculiar- 
ities, his  own  tremors  and  blushes  and  joys  and 
gratifications.  If,  poor  victim,  instead  of  troub- 
ling yourself  only  about  what  Robinson  thinks  of 
you,  you  sometimes  try  to  think  whether  you  are 
doing  your  best  to  give  pleasure  to  Robinson,  you 
will  soon  find  that  the  endeavor  to  concentrate 
your  attention  Ui)on  somebody  else's  mind  has 
taken  it  for  the  moment  off  your  own  eternally 
nagging  personality.  Depend  upon  it,  most  peo- 
ple think  more  about  what  is  being  said  and  done  ) 
around  them  than  about  the  people  who  are  say- 
ing and  doing  it.  If  the  conversation  happens  to 
turn  u[)on  Lord  Wolseley's  recent  movements  in 
Egypt,  Mr.  Tittlebat  Titmouse,  venturing  with  a 
little  flutter  of  hesitation  to  express  his  personal 
ideas  upon  the  general's  capacities  as  a  strategist, 


/ 


38  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

imagines  in  liis  own  mind  that  everybody  else  is 
thinking  in  his  soul,  "This  is  Tittlebat  Titmouse's 
deliberate  opinion."  But  everybody  else  in  that 
little  group  of  talkers  is  thinking  not  in  the  least 
about  Tittlebat  Titmouse  and  his  private  lucubra- 
tions ;  they  are  all  thinking  about  Lord  Wolseley 
and  the  Egyptian  expedition  —  or  about  them- 
selves. We  each  unconsciously  exaggerate  to 
ourselves  our  own  relative  importance  as  parts  of 
this  great  complex  whole  which  we  call  the  world; 
we  consider  ourselves  the  centre  of  the  universe 
to  ever3'body  else,  whereas  we  are  really  only  the 
centre  for  our  o"  i  little  restricted  individuality. 
Oddly  enough,  truly  great  men  and  women  are 
generally  quite  devoid  of  tiie  faintest  shadow  of 
such  self-consciousness  ;  they  are  so  filled  with  the 
subject  which  holds  them  for  the  moment  that 
they  forget  themselves  in  the  passing  interest  of 
the  conversation.  To  be  sure,  there  have  been  a 
few  great  self-conscious  geniuses  —  Byron,  Lord 
Lytton,  Victor  Hugo,  and  half  a  dozen  more  of 
the  same  kidney ;  but  it  is  always  noticeable  that 
their  influence  is  greatest  with  their  own  contem- 
poraries, and  fades  away  slowly  into  nothing  as 
subsequent  generations  gradually"  forget  them.  It 
is  the  great  self-forgetting  and  self-suppressing 
geniuses  of  the  world  —  the  Homers,  the  Aris- 
totles,  the  Virgils,  the  Dantes,  the  Shakspeares, 
and  the  Michael  Angelos  —  whose  fame  lives  on 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  39 

and  grows  and  expands  often  in  the  midst  of 
absolute  ignorance  as  to  their  private  life  and  per- 
sonality. 

For  the  fact  is,  nobody,  as  a  rule,  is  much  inter- 
ested in  other  people's  most  internal  personality. 
An  autobiography,  unless  it  be  the  autobiograpliy 
of  a  ver}'  great  or  a  very  peculiar  personage,  rarely 
excites  much  attention  among  general  readers. 
Self  has  been  well  described,  indeed,  as  that  sub- 
ject upon  which  all  men  are  fluent  and  none  agree- 
able. Hence  even  geniuses,  when  profoundly 
self-conscious,  fail  to  interest  any  save  their  own 
I)assing  generation.  After-ages  get  tired  of  their 
distorted  pictures  of  what  they  take  to  be  their 
own  souls.  They  turn  rather  to  the  really  great 
objective  writers,  the  Homers  and  Shakspeares 
and  Chancers  and  Molieres,  who  never  trouble  at 
all  about  themselves,  but  put  upon  the  canvas 
before  us  the  living  images  of  men  and  women, 
n  even  exceptional  natures,  then,  thus  fail  to 
attact  us  when  too  self-conscious,  how  can  ordi- 
nary e  very-day  average  people  hope  to  prove 
acceptable  to  one  another,  unless  they  make  an 
effort  to  cast  aside  this  perpetual  habit  of  thinking 
of  nothing  but  their  own  idiosyncrasy?  The  self- 
conscious  should  make  a  deliberate  attempt  to  free 
themselves  from  the  trammels  of  their  own  point 
of  view,  —  to  think  of  others,  to  feel  for  others,  to 
sympathize  with  others,  and  to  forget  self  in  the 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


settled  determination  to  be  wider-minded  and 
more  objective  in  attitude — better  even  to  think 
healthily  and  unconcernedly  about  the  merest  tri- 
fles than  to  pry  too  much  into  the  deepest  recesses 
of  one's  own  feelings.  If  we  leave  our  feelings 
altogether  alone,  indeed,  we  shall  soon  be  sur- 
prised to  find  that,  so  far  as  self-consciousness 
goes,  we  have  ceased  to  have  any.  We  shall  have 
merged  the  consciousness  of  self  in  the  general 
service  of  universal  humanity. 


IV. 

ATTAINABLE  IDEALS. 

Benjamin  Franklin,  philosopher  and  electri- 
cian began  life  as  a  journeyman  printer,  and  he 
lived  to  occupy  the  distinguished  position  of  United 
States  Minister  in  Paris  and  London.  But  it  is  im- 
mediately evident  to  the  meanest  comprehension 
(and  much  more,  then,  to  the  intelligent  reader) 
that  not  more  than  one  compositor  at  a  time  can 
ever  fill  the  post  of  ambassador  extraordinary 
from  any  one  great  power  of  the  world  to  the 
court  of  another.  The  vast  mass  of  deserving 
journeyman  printers  must  perforce  be  otherwise 
provided  for,  and  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred,  we  shrewdly  suspect,  must  remain  jour- 
neyman printers  still  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 
Indeed,  in  spite  of  the  excellent  example  for  emu- 
lation afforded  them  by  the  career  of  Franklin 
himself,  we  do  not  recollect  that  any  other  Amer- 
ican compositor  has  ever  been  duly  accredited  by 
his  own  government  to  the  occupant  for  the  time 
being  of  the  Tuileries  or  St.  James'.  William 
Herschel,  organist  and  astronomer,  started  in  the 
world  as  oboe-player  in  a  German  regimental  band, 

41 


42  ATTAINABLE  IDEALS. 

and  lie  ended  his  days  in  the  dignity  of  knight- 
hood, as  keeper  of  Kiug  George's  private  observa- 
tory at  Kew.  But  not  more  than  one  German 
bandsman  at  a  time  can  ever  hope  to  preside  with 
distinguished  success  over  the  great  national  in- 
stitution at  Greenwich  or  Wasliington ;  and  it 
has  not  been  noticed  that  Sir  William  Herschel's 
marvellous  energy  has  succeeded  in  insjiiriiig 
future  musical  performers  with  any  profound  in- 
terest in  the  science  of  astronomy.  So,  again, 
George  Stephenson,  engine-driver  and  inventor, 
was  brouglit  up  in  a  north-country  colliery-vil- 
lage, where  he  ran  about  barefoot  among  the 
trucks  and  coal-heaps  througliout  his  entire  boy- 
hood, never  even  learning  to  read  and  write  till  he 
was  over  twenty;  but  lie  lived  to  invent  tlie  first 
truly  practicable  locomotive,  and  lie  died  a  mil- 
lionnaire  among  his  halls  and  gardens,  his  peaches 
and  his  pineries.  Yet  no  large  proportion  of 
north-country  colliers  have  since  collected  for- 
tunes of  five  millit)n  dollars;  nor  is  it  conceivable 
(even  if  it  were  desirable)  that  any  great  number 
of  people  t(igether  should  ever  rise  to  such  a  high 
and  giddy  j)innacle  of  wealth.  To  be  President 
of  the  United  States,  to  be  Prime  ]\Iinister,  to  be 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  be  Lord  Chancellor, 
to  be  the  greatest  painter,  or  the  leading  physician, 
or  the  most  popular  author,  or  the  finest  singer,  or 
the  biggest  land-owner,  or  the  richest  merchant  in 


ATTAINABLE  IDEALS.  48 

all  America — these  are  necessarily  special  distinc- 
tions which  can  fall  to  the  lot  only  of  a  single  man 
in  each  generation,  and  each  such  man  must  hiui- 
self  be  born,  to  start  with,  in  possession  of  very 
excej)tional  and  unusual  endowments,  of  greater 
or  less  genuine  importance,  according  to  the  par- 
ticular distinction  aimed  at. 

It  has  often  struck  us,  in  reading  the  numerous 
biographies  of  so-called  "successful  men"whicli 
are  put  forth  in  thousa.ids  of  copies  b}'  well-mean- 
ing people,  that  this  original  and  obvious  distinc- 
tion was  too  often  systematically  slurred  over  and 
so  obscured.  "Look  at  John  Gibson!"  the  work- 
ing stone-mason  is  patronizingly  advised.  "  He 
was  only  a  common  stone-cutter  like  you  ;  and  yet 
he  rose  to  be  the  greatest  of  all  modern  English 
sculptors."  True;  but  then  it  is  forgotten  that 
he  started  by  being  John  Gibson,  and  that,  if  a 
hundred  average  hard-working  and  intelligent 
journeyman  stone-cutters  were  to  go  to  Rome  on 
foot  and  study  scul[)ture  and  work  their  fingers  to 
the  bone  all  their  lives  long,  the  chances  against 
any  one  of  them  ever  turning  out  a  tinted  Venus 
or  a  Psyche  and  the  Zephyrs  would  be  practically 
almost  infinite.  "Look  at  Abraham  Lincoln!" 
the  American  farm-bo}'  is  affectionately  counselled. 
"He  was  only  a  connnon  laborer  like  you;  and 
yet  he  rose  to  be  President  of  the  United  States, 
and  to  guide  his  country  safely  through  the  very 


44  ATTAINABLE  IDEALS. 

death-throes  of  a  terrible  crisis."  True  ;  but  tlien  it 
is  not  added  at  tlie  same  time  that  Abraham  L'mcohi 
was  a  born  statesman,  and  that  agricultural  labor- 
ers generally  do  not  go  about  the  world  like  un- 
fledged Presidents,  with  the  inner  consciousness  of 
their  glorious  potentiality  of  swaying  a  great  em- 
pire as  their  chief  encouragement  while  they  hoe 
potatoes.  Every  French  soldier,  we  are  often  as- 
sured, carries  a  marshal's  6(^^on  hidden  in  his  knap- 
sack ;  but  most  of  them  carry  it  in  their  knapsacks 
till  the  day  of  their  death,  without  ever  having  the 
chance  of  producing  it  openly  at  a  review  at  Long- 
champs.  If  they  did  not  do  so,  what  would  be- 
come of  the  rank  and  file,  and  where  would  the 
necessary  pay  be  found  for  so  many  generals? 
The  Army  of  the  Republic  of  Haiti  is  the  only  one 
known  to  exist  at  the  present  moment  in  which 
the  number  of  field-officers  actually  exceeds  the 
number  of  privates ;  and  the  Republic  of  Haiti  is 
not  regarded  even  by  the  friends  of  freedom  as 
a  distinguished  triumph  of  the  human  intellect. 

The  real  ideal,  we  take  it,  which  ninety-nine  out 
of  a  hundred  of  us  ought  soberly  and  honestly  to 
place  before  ourselves,  is  not  the  ideal  of  "getting 
on  "  into  another  rank,  but  the  ideal  of  doing  the 
best  and  highest  work  we  can  in  the  station  in  life 
\  in  which  we  actually  find  ourselves.  Not  that  we 
would  for  one  moment  discourage  the  favored  few 
who  really  feel  that  they  have  it  in  them  by  their 


ATTAINABLE  IDEALS.  45 

own  exertions  to  rise  superior  to  the  lot  in  wliich 
they  were  born.  The  great  catalogue  of  "tl\e  men 
who  have  risen  "  contains  probably  the  vast  major- 
ity of  all  those  names  which  the  human  race  is 
most  likely  to  remember  always  with  joy  aiwl 
gratitude.  The  thinkers  who  have  given  us  the 
noblest  thoughts,  the  workers  who  have  most 
improved  the  conditions  of  human  life,  the  bene- 
factors of  their  kind  whose  great  inventions  or  dis- 
coveries still  live  amongst  us,  liave  for  the  most  part 
been  self-made  men,  and  have  started  in  many  cases 
from  the  very  humblest  and  simplest  beginnings. 
But  such  men  have  already  encouragement  enough 
and  to  spare;  there  is  no  fear  that  the  spur  of 
personal  ambition  will  ever  fail  in  inducing  those 
conscious  of  great  and  exceptional  abilities  from 
applying  them  to  the  very  best  possible  advantage 
for  themselves  and  their  fellows.  The  danger  of 
hiding  our  light  under  a  bushel  is  not  one  to 
which  most  of  us  in  these  latter  days  are  conspic- 
uously liable.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  at  all  times,  and  especially  in  these  present 
days  of  rapid  expansion  and  universal  education, 
the  mere  material  gospel  of  "getting  on  "  may  be 
preached  too  strenuously,  too  often,  and  too  well. 
Tliere  is  a  real  danger  that  excessive  stress  may  be 
laid  upon  the  actual  or  imaginary  practical  results 
of  teaching  and  effort,  that  hopes  may  be  encour- 
aged which  are  in  their  own  nature  incapable  of 


46  ATTAINABLE  IDEALS. 

wide  or  general  fulfilment,  that  an  accidental  and 
exceptional  effect  may  be  mistaken  for  the  true 
use  and  main  value  of  better  education.  Let  us 
illustrate  our  meaning  by  a  simple  and  naive  old 
English  saw.  "  When  land  is  gone  and  money 
spent,  then  learning  is  most  excellent,"  says  the 
ancient  proverb,  thus  staking  the  whole  import- 
ance of  education,  as  it  were,  upon  its  mere  inci- 
dental and  casual  nse  as  a  lat>t  resource,  a  some- 
thing to  fall  back  npon  in  case  of  a  serious  reverse 
of  fortune.  It  says,  in  fact,  to  the  aspiring  and  in- 
telligent young  woman  of  the  period  —  "  You  had 
better  do  your  best  to  learn  hard  now  that  you  are 
young,  for  if  your  husband  —  when  you  get  one  — 
should  happen  to  die  and  leave  you  unprovided 
for,  you  will  then  be  able  at  least  to  open  a  ladies' 
school."  Could  any  ground  be  more  ridiculous 
on  which  to  base  the  claims  of  learning?  The  in- 
finite  every-day  uses  and  joys  of  knowledge  and 
culture  are  overlooked  in  favor  of  a  remote  and 
doubtful  contingency.  And  yet  it  is  on  grounds 
scarcely  less  ridiculous  than  these  that  young  men 
and  boys  are  often  called  upon  by  well-meaning 
advisers  to  exert  themselves  to  the  utmost  in  their 
own  trade  or  profession.  "  Be  diligent  in  taking 
round  your  loaves  of  bread  every  morning,"  we 
say  in  effect  to  the  London  baker's  boy,  "and 
then,  perhaps,  when  you  grow  up,  you  may  rise  to 
be  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty."     "  Learn  all  you 


ATTAINABLE  IDEALS.  4:1 

can,  and  work  liard,"  we  say  in  effect  to  the  com- 
mon-school scholar,  "  and  then,  perhaps,  when  you 
come  to  be  a  man,  j'ou  may  live  in  a  handsome 
brownstone  mansion  in  Euclid  Avenue,  or  drive 
the  finest  trotting  horse  in  Central  Park  on  a 
show  day." 

Now  all  this  may  be  true  in  its  way,  and  in  a 
small  number  of  exceptional  instances  it  is  really 
true  for  boys  and  men  endowed  with  unusual  nat- 
ural endowments,  or  with  a  superior  gift  for  the 
art  of  money-making.  ButJiLfi_great  aim  of  edu- 
catioiiijisja,  rule,  ought  certainly  to  be  not  to  ena- 
ble every  one  of  us  to  rise  into  the  position  of 
United  States  Senator,  or  President  of  the  Hritish 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  — • 
which,  as  Euclid  would  say,  is  absurd  —  but  to 
/enable  every  one  of  us  to  live  well,  fully,  and 
/  nobly  the  particular  life  for  which  each  in  his 
v^vay  is  best  fitted.  Not  what  we  do,  but  what  we 
are  in  ourselves,  is  the  main  question.  It  is  rela- 
tively unimportant  to  humanity  at  large  whether 
we  belong  to  this,  that,  or  the  other  grade  in  soci- 
ety, whether  we  make  boots,  or  sell  books,  or  dis- 
pense medicines,  or  direct  and  oversee  national 
undertakings ;  what  is  really  and  fundamentally 
most  important  of  all  to  the  connnunity  as  a  whole 
is  that  we  should  each  be  as  well  adapted  as  pos- 
sible for  the  functions  in  life  we  have  severally  to 
perform.     There  are  some  good  but  nervous  peo- 


48  ATTAINABLE  IDEALS. 

pie  who  talk  about  the  danger  of  educating  young 
men  and  women  above  their  stations.  Has  any- 
body ever  yet  seen  a  man  or  woman  who  was  thus 
overeducated?  We  have  all  met  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  people  who  were  not  well  enough 
instructed  or  trained  for  their  stations;  but  we 
never  remember  to  have  met  anybody  who  had 
too  much  knowledge,  or  too  much  culture,  too 
wide  an  acquaintance  with  the  great  works  of 
literature,  too  deep  an  insight  into  the  great 
truths  of  science  and  of  nature.  Nor  do  we  quite 
see  how  such  a  thing  is  even  possible  —  how  any 
man,  however  humble  his  sphere,  can  have  trained 
too  highly  his  own  tastes  and  his  own  faculties, 
can  be  too  intelligent,  or  too  cultivated.  Similar 
tastes  and  similar  faculties  may  be  rare  at  present 
in  the  particular  class  to  which  he  belongs ;  but 
that  is  no  reason  for  saying  in  a  condemnatory 
sense  that  their  possessor  is  overeducated.  It  is  a 
reason  really  for  endeavoring  to  interest  as  many 
more  persons  of  his  class  as  possible  in  the  same 
direction.  There  is  a  common  navvy  employed 
on  some  railway  works  in  the  west  of  England 
who  has  a  marked  taste  for  antiquities,  and  a 
really  considerable  acquaintance  with  the  remains 
of  prehistoric  man.  He  has  collected  with  knowl- 
edofc  and  skill  a  small  museum  of  old  stone  im- 
plements,  and  he  wears  —  for  love  of  it  —  an 
ancient  British  gold  coin  of  some  rarity  and  value 


ATTAINABLE  IDEALS.  49 

as  an  ornament  on  his  watch-chain.  A  great  many 
other  navvies,  it  is  to  be  feared,  if  they  had  found 
the  coin,  would  have  sold  it  at  once  for  its  high- 
est market-value,  and  contributed  the  greater  por- 
tion of  the  proceeds  to  the  joint  benefit  of  the 
revenue  and  the  licensed  victualler.  But  that  is 
no  reason,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  why  we  should 
say  the  particular  navvy  in  question  has  acquired 
tastes  above  his  station.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that, 
as  time  goes  on,  all  our  navvies  will  not  indeed  be 
converted  into  professors  of  archaeology  in  the 
Universities,  but  that  more  and  more  of  them  will 
every  day  be  induced  to  follow  this  good  example, 
and  to  take  an  interest,  we  do  not  say  necessarily 
in  stone  implements  and  ancient  British  coins,  but 
in  something  other  than  the  coarse  and  vulgar 
pursuits  to  which  it  may  be  feared  most  of  the 
class  are  at  present  addicted. 

For  this  reason,  it  has  often  seemed  to  us,  lives 
like  that  of  Thomas  Edward,  the  Banff  shoemaker, 
who  devoted  his  whole  spare  time  to  the  study  of 
marine  animals,  or  that  of  Robert  Dick,  the  Thurso 
baker,  who  became  one  of  the  most  successful  and 
useful  of  British  botanists,  are  far  more  really 
encouraging  in  their  way  to  the  people  for  whose 
encouragement  they  are  specially  intended  than 
any  number  of  glowing  biographies  devoted  to  the 
doings  of  the  "  men  who  have  risen,"  and  have 
ended  by  accumulating   for  themselves,  through 


60  ATTAINABLE  IDEALS. 

fiiir  means  or  foul,  gigantic  fortunes.  Edward 
and  Dick  did  not  rise;  in  the  ordinary  vulgar 
sense  of  the  words,  their  lives  could  not  be  con- 
sidered by  any  means  successful  ;  the  one  remained 
a  mere  cobbler,  and  the  other  continued  to  lire  the 
baker's  oven  to  the  end  of  their  days.  And 
therein  consist  the  true  value  and  lesson  of  their 
history.  The}'  never  raised  themselves,  by  mere 
"getting  on,"  above  the  position  in  which  they 
were  born ;  but  they  enjoyed  in  that  position  in- 
tellectual j)leasures  and  cultivated  fellowship 
which  are  rarely  reached  by  any  even  of  those 
far,  far  above  them  in  the  social  scale.  They  cor- 
responded on  equal  terms  with  learned  men  of 
science  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  they  were 
visited  and  appreciated  by  those  whose  apprecia- 
tion they  would  have  most  valued  as  a  tribute  of 
admiration.  But  —  more  than  that  —  they  passed 
their  own  lives  liappily  and  usefully  in  the  ab- 
sorbing and  delightful  pursuit  of  natural  knowl- 
edge ;  they  drank  to  the  full  of  all  that  was 
known  and  thought  in  their  own  time  on  the  very 
profoundest  and  most  interesting  of  questions,  and 
they  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  by  their 
own  humble  amateur-work  they  had  contributed 
materially  to  the  solution  of  some  among  these 
higher  problems  which  more  learned  men  than 
themselves  had  in  many  cases  long  failed  to  grap- 
ple with.     Such  lives  as  those  are  surely,  iu  the 


ATTAINABLE  IDEALS.    ^\  51 

truest  and  noblest  sense,  i)eifectly  successful. 
We  would  not,  indeed,  for  a  moment  be  tlioujjfht 
to  undervalue  the  worth  of  thrift  and  providence. 
We  firmly  believe  that  every  man's  first  practical 
duty  in  life  is  to  provide  a(le(iuately  for  the  imme- 
diate wants  of  himself  and  those  naturally  depen- 
dent upon  him,  and  to  lay  by  to  the  utmost  of  his 
power  what  is  needful  for  their  future  sustenance 
and  comfort.  We  honor,  as  far  as  is  right,  the 
honest,  honorable,  and  worthy  ambition  to  get  on, 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term.  Still,  so  far  as 
broad,  general  facts  are  concerned,  it  must  be 
obvious  to  everybody  that  the  very  existence  of  a 
great  civilization  implies  the  constant  and  con- 
tinued existence  within  it  of  endless  bands  of 
workers  of  every  kind  —  agriculturists,  mechanics, 
factory-hands,  seamstresses,  producers  of  all  sorts 
in  iniinite  variety.  It  is  not  possible  that  all 
these,  or  any  great  proportion  of  them,  should 
ever  raise  themselves  to  be  anything  else  save 
what  they  are  at  the  present  moment ;  the  condi- 
tions of  things  are  clearly  opposed  to  such  a  sup- 
position —  you  cannot  introduce  an  act  of  Con- 
gress to  abolish  corn-growing.  But  it  is  possible 
that  all  or  a  very  large  number  among  them  should 
have  their  standard  of  comfort,  of  taste,  of  morals, 
and  of  intelligence  considerably  raised  above  its 
present  level ;  that,  while  retaining  essentially 
their  present  position,  they  should  become  better 


52  ATTAINABLE  IDEALS. 

read,  better  informed,  better  behaved,  and  better 
instructed  —  perhaps  also  better  housed,  better  fed, 
and  better  supplied  with  simple  luxuries  —  than 
many  among  them  are  nowadays.  This  is  the 
true,  realizable  ideal  for  all  masses  viewed  as 
masses ;  the  notion  of  all  raising  themselves,  each 
by  his  individual  exertions,  to  a  better  social  posi- 
tion (as  the  words  are  now  generally  understood) 
is  a  mere  chimera;  but  the  notion  of  all  raising 
themselves  as  a  body  by  each  attaining  higher 
interests  and  higher  levels  of  culture  is  in  every 
way  a  practicable  and  a  desirable  one.  Toward  this 
end  all  social  progress  ought  properly  to  direct 
itself;  it  should  aim  at  the  general  elevation  of 
classes,  not  at  the  particular  elevation  of  individ- 
uals from  one  class  into  another.  To  make  nhe 
great  thoughts  of  poet  and  philosopher,  of  essayist 
"nd  thinker,  of  scholar  and  orator,  familiar  to  every 
English  and  American  lad  and  maiden ;  to  bring 
home  art  to  the  firesides  of  the  million  ;  to  ditTuse 
the  wonderful  discoveries  of  science  among  tlie 
widest  possible  appreciative  audiences;  to  stimu- 
late all  the  liigher  tastes  for  music  and  reading, 
and  country  scenery,  and  the  study  of  nature,  and 
the  delights  of  all  {esthetic  sense  —  this  is  a  true 
means  of  making  thousands  of  lives  more  really 
successful  —  that  is  to  say,  happier,  fuller,  and 
worthier  of  a  reasonable  creature's  living  —  than 
they  are  in  the  present  condition  of  society.     The 


ATTAINABLE  IDEALS.  63 

man  who  secures  a  modeiate  coinpetence,  accord- 
ing to  the  ideas  of  the  rank  in  which  he  was 
brought  up,  and  who  passes  his  leisure  time  in 
constant  spiritual  intercourse  with  Shakspeare 
and  Milton,  with  Locke  and  Emerson,  with  Rey- 
nolds and  Gainsborough,  with  Beethoven  and 
Mendelssohn,  with  cloud  and  sunset,  with  bee  and 
butterfly,  with  fern  and  flower,  and  with  the  deep 
response  of  human  s^Mupathy,  has  surely  succeeded 
in  life  immeasurably  more  truly  than  if  he  had 
s[)ent  his  entire  time  poring  over  the  delightful 
details  of  his  ledger  and  day-bock,  and  had  died 
leaving  a  personalty  valued  for  probate  at  not  less 
than  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling. 


V. 

INSTINCT  AND  REASON. 

One  of  the  clieapest,  easiest,  and  worst  ways  of 
settling  any  delicate  distinction  is  that  of  drawing 
a  hard  and  fast  artificial  line,  so  as  to  cut  off  the 
doubtful  or  border  cases  by  a  dogmatic  definition. 
Where,  for  example,  does  instinct  end,  and  wliere 
exactly  does  reason  begin  ?  "  Oh,"  say  many  ex- 
cellent people,  with  the  off-hand  glibness  begotten 
of  thoughtlessness,  "men  have  reason  and  animals 
have  instinct ! "  —  and,  having  delivered  themselves 
forthwith  of  this  simple  and  effective  judicial 
summing  up,  they  dismiss  the  case  from  court  im- 
mediately, as  not  deserving  of  further  hearing. 
Well,  of  course,  if  we  choose  thus  dogmatically 
to  cut  the  Gordian  knot  by  decreeing  that  in- 
stinctive actions,  when  they  appear  in  man,  shall 
be  set  down  verbally  as  due  to  reason,  while 
efforts  of  reasoning,  when  they  appear  in  the 
lower  animals,  shall  be  contemptuously  rc^garded 
as  beautiful  examples  of  a  developed  instinct, 
there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said  .about  the  matter. 
But  such  a  purel}"  verbal  and  delusive  decision  does 
not  really  alter  in  any  way  the  underlying  identity 

54 


INSTINCT  AND  REASON.  66 

of  human  instinct  with  animal  instinct,  or  of  ani- 
mal reason  witli  human  reason.  It  has  been  abun- 
dantly demonstrated  of  late  years  both  that  man 
l)ossesses  true  instincts  and  tliat  some  animals,  at 
least  occasionally,  display  true  reasoning  powers. 
No  doubt,  in  man  the  instincts  are  reduced  to 
comparatively  small  dimensions,  while  the  reason 
has  attained  an  exalted  position  far  above  what  it 
ever  attains  in  the  highest  brutes.  But  that  con- 
sideration must  not  bliud  us  either  to  the  fact 
that  we  do  really  share  with  tlie  animal  world  in 
the  great  and  valuable  endowment  of  instinct,  or 
to  the  converse  fact  that  animals  do  really  share 
with  us,  to  a  less  degree,  in  the  far  greater  and 
still  more  valuable  endowment  of  reason.  These 
two  complementary  principles  have  now  for  some 
years  been  almost  universally  acknowledged 
among  naturalists,  physiologists,  and  men  of 
science ;  it  is  time  that  they  should  come  to  be 
more  generally  recognized  as  true  by  the  public 
generally,  learned  or  unlearned. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  by  way  of  deciding 
whether  human  beings  do  or  do  not  share  in  the 
gift  of  instinct,  let  us  begin  by  asking  the  prior 
question,  "  What  is  an  instinct,  and  how  do  we 
know  an  action  to  be  instinctive  when  we  observe 
it?"  Instinct  has  been  admirably  defined  by  Dr. 
Bain  as  an  "untaught  ability"  —  that  is  to  say, 
an  ability  inherited  by  a  race  as  part  of  its  mental 


56  INSTINCT  AND  REASON. 

nature,  and  not  requiring  to  be  definitely  taught 
it.  Thus,  for  example,  the  art  of  building  lionej- 
conib  is  an  instinct  with  bees.  They  do  not  need 
instruction  from  one  another  in  the  mode  of  form- 
ing their  regular  hexagonal  cells  with  wax ;  as 
soon  as  they  are  fairly  hatched  from  the  grub 
state,  they  begin  to  work  upon  constructing  comb, 
gathering  lioney,  feeding  larvsB,  and  attending  to 
the  wants  of  the  queen  bee,  as  if  they  had  been 
accustomed  to  nothing  else  but  such  adult  activi- 
ties. So,  too,  with  the  spider's  web,  the  bird's 
nest,  the  curious  habits  of  ants  and  wasps  and 
burying  beetles  and  processional  caterpillars.  To 
take  a  single  well  marked  case  —  that  strange  in- 
sect, the  ant-lion,  forms,  with  astonishing  labor,  a 
funnel-shaped  pitfall  in  a  dry  sandy  soil,  and 
buries  himself  up  to  his  neck  in  the  sand  at  the 
bottom,  leaving  only  his  great  jaws  visible  above, 
and  thus  lying  in  wait  patiently  in  ambush  for  his 
expected  prey  to  fall  into  his  mouth.  When  an 
ant  or  any  other  small  insect  happens  to  walk  on 
the  edge  of  the  pitfall,  it  knocks  down  a  little  of 
the  sand  on  the  sloping  bank,  and  so  gives  the 
ant-lion  timely  notice  of  its  passing  presence.  In- 
stantly the  tiny  carnivore  in  his  hiding-i)lace 
below  throws  up  the  sand  like  miniature  artillery 
to  overwhelm  the  ant,  and  soon  brings  his  victim 
down  to  the  bottom  of  the  trap,  between  his 
greedy  jaws.     But  all  this,  which  so  closely  re- 


INSTINCT  AND  REASON.  67 

seiiibles  rational  prevision,  is  nevertheless  in  real- 
ity a  purely  instinctive  action ;  any  ant-lion 
liatched  out  of  the  egg,  away  from  all  others  of 
its  kind,  and  allowed  to  follow  its  own  inherited 
habits  undisturbed,  will  immediately  begin  to 
construct  an  ant-pit  on  its  own  account,  quite 
apart  from  any  possibility  of  intercourse,  imita- 
tion, or  deliberate  teaching.  This  may  be  re- 
garded therefore  as  a  good  typical  instance  of  a 
true  instinct  —  an  inherited  aptitude  independent 
of  instruction  or  conscious  experience. 

Now  the  question  is,  Do  human  beings  possess 
any  such  inherited  aptitudes,  any  instinctive  ac- 
tivities which  manifest  themselves  prior  to  all 
teaching  or  knowledge  of  their  effects  ?  The  an- 
swer to  this  question  must  inevitably  be,  Most 
certainly  they  do.  If  we  put  the  moutlipiece  of 
a  feeding-bottle  to  an  infant's  lips  a  few  minutes 
after  birth,  the  child  will  at  once  close  its  mouth 
upon  the  tube  greedily,  and  begin  to  suck  with 
all  its  might.  This  action  is  not  rational ;  the  baby 
has  no  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  the  bottle  con- 
tains milk,  that  milk  is  good  for  human  food  (es- 
pecially in  the  case  of  the  human  baby),  and  that 
the  way  to  get  at  it  is  by  closing  the  lips  and  tak- 
ing a  good  pull  at  the  mouthpiece.  It  sucks 
purely  and  entirely  by  instinct;  the  impulse  to 
purse  up  its  lips  and  draw  in  its  breath  is  an 
untaught  ability,  an  inherited  aptitude,  a  habifc 


58  INSTINCT  AND  REASON. 

inherent  in  its  nervous  system,  and  liantled  down 
to  it  from  all  previous  generations  of  liunian 
babies  from  time  immemorial.  Perhaps  tliis  may 
be  regarded  as  the  very  best  instance  of  an  in- 
stinctive action  among  human  beings,  and  it  must 
certainly  rank  among  the  most  important  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  preservation  of  the 
s[)ecies;  for,  if,  b}^  any  conceivable  accident,  our 
babies  wei'e  all  unanimously  to  forget  the  way  to 
feed  themselves  and  refuse  to  suck,  it  is  clear  tliat 
humanity  would  very  sliortly  become  as  extinct 
upon  our  globe  as  the  mammoth  and  the  mastodon. 
But  there  are  sever/il  other  instincts,  less  marked, 
it  is  true,  yet  not  less  real  —  whicli  persist  with  all 
of  us  throughout  our  whole  lifetime.  There  is  the 
instinct  which  prompts  us  to  wink  or  close  our  eyes 
before  an  excessive  flash  of  liglit,  a  blow  aimed  at 
tlie  eye,  or  the  sudden  approach  of  an  insect,  dust, 
a  twig,  or  any  other  dangerous  object.  Babies 
close  their  eves  instinctivelv  if  menaced  with  a 
blow,  though  they  do  not  know  that  the  eye  is  a 
specially  sensitive  part,  or  that  injuries  to  it  are 
peculiarly  painful  and  disabling.  As  long  as  we 
live  the  instinct  persists,  and,  as  it  acts  far  more 
quickly  and  surely  than  reason,  it  saves  many  of 
us,  no  doubt,  on  numerous  occasions,  from  the 
chance  of  blindness  or  serious  hurt.  Instincts  of 
self-preservation  of  many  sorts  also  occur  in  man, 
and  are  never  got  rid  of  to  the  very  end,  even  by 


INSTINCT  AND  REASON.  59 

our  prepondeiatingly  intellectual  and  rational  ed- 
ucation. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  can  now  be  very  lit- 
tle doubt  that  many  of  the  lower  animals  possess 
distinct  and  decided  reasoning  faculties  of  a  low 
grade.  To  take  an  exami)le  from  a  comparatively 
humble  and  despised  animal,  here  is  a  case  of  ap- 
parent reasoning  cited  by  Mr.  Darwin  on  the  part 
of  a  crab.  A  competent  observer  was  watching  a 
shore-crab  making  its  burrow,  and  he  threw  some 
shells  over  towards  the  hole,  just  to  see  what  the 
crab  would  make  of  them.  One  of  the  shells 
rolled  down  the  sides  of  the  burrow,  and  three 
others  landed  on  the  edge  a  little  way  off.  In 
about  five  minutes  the  crab  appeared  at  the  mouth 
of  his  tunnel,  carrying  out  the  shell  that  had  fallen 
in,  and  removed  it  safely  to  the  distance  of  a  foot. 
On  his  way  back  he  saw  the  three  other  shells 
lying  close  by,  and,  regarding  them  closely,  evi- 
dently reflected  that  they  were  very  likely  to  roll 
in  too.  So  he  lifted  them  up  carefully  in  his  jaws 
and  deposited  them  in  safety  beside  the  first  that 
he  had  removed  from  the  burrow.  Now  it  is 
clearly  mere  verbal  juggling  to  ?all  such  a  delib- 
erate act  as  this  instinctive.  The  crab  had  no 
inherited  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  shells  are 
liable  to  roll  into  crab-burrows ;  he  merely 
reasoned  from  his  experience  of  the  behavior  of 
one  such  shell  to  the  probable  behavior  of  others 


60  INSTINCT  AND  REASON. 

like  it.  And  it  is  just  this  power  of  learning 
from  experience,  of  drawing  an  inference  from 
one  case  to  guide  us  in  another,  that  we  call 
reason.  As  Mr.  Romanes  well  says,  "  If  I  were 
to  see  a  large  stone  falling  through  the  roof  of 
my  conservatory,  and,  on  climbing  to  the  wall 
above,  saw  three  or  four  stones  just  upon  the 
edge,  I  should  infer  that  the  stone  which  fell 
previously  stood  in  a  similar  relation  to  my  con- 
servatory, and  therefore  that  it  would  be  desirable 
to  remove  the  others  from  their  threatening  posi- 
tion. This  would  be  an  act  of  reason  (though  a 
simple  one) ;  and  it  is  identical  with  the  act 
which  was  performed  by  the  crab."  To  deny 
this  is  to  give  two  different  names  to  what  is  es- 
sentially one  and  the  same  mental  act,  not  because 
of  any  real  difference  in  the  act  itself,  but  be- 
cause of  differences  in  the  dignity  of  the  creatures 
which  happen  to  perform  it.  Such  verbal  juggling 
can  never  lead  to  any  clear  or  good  intellectual 
result. 

Another  instance  of  undoubted  reasoning  in  an 
animal  far  higher  in  the  scale  than  the  crab  who 
performed  this  bit  of  syllogizing  is  related  by  Dr. 
Bastian  of  an  orang-outang  in  the  menagerie  of 
the  Botanic  Garden  at  Paris.  This  intelligent 
beast  was  accustomed,  when  the  dinner  hour  had 
come,  to  open  the  door  of  the  room  where  he  took 
his  meals  in  company  with  several  persons.     As 


INSTINCT  AND  REASON.  61 

he  was  not  sufficiently  tall  to  reach  as  far  as  the 
key  of  the  door,  he  liiing  on  to  a  rope,  balanced 
liimself,  and,  after  a  few  swings,  very  quickly 
reached  the  key.  His  keeper,  who  was  rather 
worried  by  so  much  exactitude,  one  day  took  occa- 
sion to  make  three  knots  in  the  rope,  which,  hav- 
ing thus  been  made  too  short,  no  longer  permitted 
the  orang-outang  to  seize  the  key.  The  animal, 
after  an  ineffectual  attempt,  recognizing  the  na- 
ture of  the  obstacle  which  opposed  his  desire, 
climbed  up  tlie  rope,  placed  himself  above  the 
knots,  and  untied  all  three.  The  same  ape  wish- 
ing to  open  a  door,  his  keeper  gave  him  a  bunch 
of  fifteen  keys ;  the  ape  tried  them  in  turn  till  he 
had  found  the  one  which  he  wanted.  At  another 
time  a  bar  of  iron  was  put  into  his  hands,  and  he 
made  use  of  it  as  a  lever.  Similar  instances  of 
comparatively  high  reasoning  powers  in  dogs, 
horses,  elephants,  pigs,  parrots,  foxes,  cats,  and 
donkeys  have  been  collected  in  numbers  of  late 
years,  and  published  with  excellent  authenticating 
letters  in  various  scientific  journals  and  transac- 
tions. Cases  of  the  sort  are,  of  course,  totally 
different  in  kind  from  the  mere  instincts,  however 
admirable,  of  the  beaver,  the  ant,  the  cuckoo,  and 
the  bower-bird.  These  instincts  are  always 
directly  connected  with  the  inherited  habits  and 
mode  of  life  of  the  race,  and  are  the  same  for  all 
its  members  in  all  circumstances ;  whereas  the  oc- 


^ 


rip, 


62  INSTINCT  AND  REASON. 

casional  exercises  of  true  reason  by  be.asts  or  birds 
always  take  place  in  exceptional  conditions,  and 
often  in  circumstances  which  can  seldom  or  never 
liave  occurred  before  in  the  liistory  of  their  kind. 
For  example,  no  orang-outang  in  the  wild  state  is 
ever  likely  to  come  across  a  rope  with  three  knots 
in  it,  or  to  wish  to  open  a  locked  door  by  trying 
all  the  keys  of  a  bunch,  or  to  employ  a  crowbar 
by  way  of  a  lever,  in  order  to  force  a  fastened 
lock.  All  these  are  things  that  can  have  hap- 
pened but  seldom  in  the  whole  past  history  of 
orang-outangdom. 

Indeed  the  most  modern  theory  of  the  origin  of 
instinct  refers  it  in  almost  every  case  to  primarily 
intelligent  acts,  so  often  performed  by  each  race 
that  the  mode  of  action  has  at  last  become  in- 
grained in  the  nervous  system,  and  hereditarily 
handed  down,  independently  of  experience.  If 
this  theory  be  really  true — and  it  is  a  theory 
which  obtains  every  day  more  and  more  of  assent 
from  the  scientific  world  —  then  instinct  itself 
must  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  organized  and  regis- 
tered tribal  reason,  the  inherited  intelligence  and 
experience  of  an  entire  race,  grown  by  practice  into 
an  invariable  habit,  and  indelibly  fixed,  as  it  were, 
on  the  very  brain  and  nerves  of  every  individual 
in  the  whole  species.  Birds,  we  may  suppose,  lirst 
learned  to  build  their  nests  by  slow  trials,  much 
as  human  beings  have  learned  to  build  their  houses; 


INSTINCT  AND  REASON.  63 

but  tliey  went  on  building  them   all  in  the  same 
way  until  at  last  every  bird  of  each  kind  inherits 
at  l)irth  the  nest-making  faculty  exactly  as  it  in- 
herits wings  to  fly  and  feet  to  perch  with.     So, 
too,  the  swallows  may  have  convinced  themselves 
by  slow  experience  of  the  advantages  of  migrat- 
ing and  the  ants  may  have  gradually  acquired  the 
habit  of   foraging  in  regular  parties  along  fixed 
highways.     We  know,  indeed,  that  the  retriever 
has  been  regularly  taught  to  retrieve  and  the  ter- 
rier to  worry  ;  yet  so  instinctive  have   those  two 
habits  now  become  in  the  two  breeds  that,  if  you 
throw  a  handkerchief  down  to  a  young  retriever 
puppy,  he  will  bring  it  over  and  lay  it  at  your 
feet  as  if  it  were  a  game-bird ;  while  if  you  throw 
it  to  a  baby  terrier,  he  will  shake  it  in   his  teeth 
savagely,  as  if  it  were  a  rat.     Sheep  in  Spain  are   _^  ^., 
driven  every  year  by  their  owners  from  the  parched 
lowlands  to  the  mountain  pastures;  and  in  the 
course  of  generations  this  acquired  habit  of  mi-      j 
grating  has  become  so  ingrained  in  the  very  brains      * 
of  the  merinos  that  as  the  time  for  movijig  aj)-      / 
proaches  they  begin  to  exhibit  uneasy  feelings  ex-      / 
actly  like  those  of  wild  geese  or  other  migratory     I 
birds  at  the  advent  of  the  season  for  the  annual       ( 
flight.    It  is  not  improbable,  therefore,  that  instinct 
is  in  many,  if  not  in  most,  cases  a  form  of  hq)sed 
or  organized  intelligence  —  a  result  of  what  were 
once  reasonable  inferences  from  experience  acting 


64  INSTINCT  AND  REASON. 

HOW  with  blind  regularity  quite  apart  from  auy 
distinct  individual  consciousness  of  the  end  in- 
tended or  the  means  employed.  It  may  be  con- 
sidered perhaps  as  a  kind  of  organic,  unconscious 
reason,  more  rapid  and  certain,  but  less  discrimi- 
native and  plastic  than  true  individual  intelligence, 
which  is  always  based  on  conscious  experience 
and  on  the  deliberate  adaptation  of  means  to  end. 
Instinct  always  acts  immediately,  but  it  also  often 
acts  wrong;  reason  usually  hesitates  and  deliber- 
ates, but  it  leads  oftener  in  the  end  to  the  best  re- 
sult. In  proportion  as  any  creature  rises  higher 
in  the  scale  of  life,  it  will  be  guided  less  and  less 
by  inherited  faculties  and  more  and  more  by  indi- 
vidual experiences  —  it  will  become  decreasingly 
instinctive  and  increasingly  rational  —  it  will  sub- 
ordinate the  lower  to  the  higher  faculty.  That  is 
why  in  man  the  instincts  are  comparatively  broken 
and  enfeebled,  while  the  reason  is  comparatively 
advanced  and  supreme. 


VI. 

SLEEP. 

Man  is  certainly  to  a.  marvellous  degree  a 
creature  of  habit.  Every  clay  at  a  fixed  hour  — 
barring  accidents  —  the  vast  majority  of  us  sit 
down  to  the  domestic  board  and  proceed  inconti- 
nently to  eat  our  dinners,  without  having  ever 
once  paused  to  inquire,  "  Why  on  earth  should  we 
always  go  through  this  remarkable  and  somewhat 
monotonous  daily  proceeding?"  To  be  sure,  we 
do  not  mean  to  assert  that  man  is  more  a  crea- 
ture of  habit  and  less  incjuisitive  in  this  respect 
than  other  animals,  for  we  do  not  for  a  moment 
suppose  that  a  philosophic  tiger,  in  full  sight  of  a 
nice,  juicy,  tender  antelope,  ever  stopped  and  eyed 
his  victim  abstractedly,  while  he  asked  himself  tiie 
metaphysical  question,  "What  is  the  ultimate  end 
of  eating  ?  "  Still  it  is  a  fact  that  most  of  us  do 
actually  go  on  consuming  food  all  on/;  lives  long, 
without  any  except  the  veiy  vaguest  i)ossible  idea 
that  it  is  in  some  way  necessary  for  kee[)ing  uj) 
the  strength  of  the  body.  We  know  that,  if  we 
did  not  eat  at  all,  we  should  starve  to  death,  and 
that,  if  we  even  went  without  food  for  a  whole 

05 


66  SLEEP. 

day  together,  we  slioiild  suffer  from  a  very  incon- 
venient iiitern;d  gnawing  wliicli  we  call  luinger; 
and  that  knowledge  is  quite  enongh  for  almost  all 
of  us,  without  any  further  minute  prying  into  the 
exact  details  of  the  digestive  process.  Nature  has 
quite  sufficiently  endowed  us  with  an  immediate 
inducement  to  do  our  duty  in  this  respect,  by  pro- 
viding us  with  the  sense  of  taste  and  the  feeling 
of  apjietite.  It  is  just  the  same  with  sleep.  Night 
after  night,  as  the  clock  points  to  the  accustomed 
hour,  we  all  betake  ourselves  to  what  Mr.  Dick 
Swiveller  elliptically  described  in  his  own  })eculiar 
dialect  as  "  the  downy,"  and  there  seek  with  vary- 
ing success  to  court  what  the  same  eminent 
linguistic  authority  has  christened  "the  balmy." 
If  asked  why  we  want  to  spend  nearly  half  our 
lives  in  bed,  and  why  we  wish  at  that  particular 
moment  to  do  the  very  same  thing  that  we  have 
done  every  night  of  our  lives  already  till  we 
ought  to  be  tired  of  it,  a  few  very  philosophical 
people  might  indeed  answer,  "  Because  we  are  in 
need  of  rest";  but  the  w'orld  at  large  would  cer- 
tainly respond  in  cheerful  innocence,  "Because 
we're  sleepy."  Nature  has  provided  that  wise 
and  foolish,  philosophers  and  ignoramuses,  should 
all  jdike  take  the  necessary  repose,  whether  they 
know  the  reasons  for  doing  so,  or  whether  they 
know  them  not ;  and  that  is  certainly  one  of  the 
advantages  of  being  a  creature  of  habit. 


SLEEP.  67 

Yet,  if  we  look  a  little  deeper  into  the  matter, 
the  question  "  Why  do  almost  all  animals  require 
this  nightly  period  of  rest  and  unconsciousness'.  " 
is  surely  one  that  calls  for  a  rational  and  compre- 
hensive answer.  It  is  easy  enough  to  say  glibly, 
"  Of  course  we  need  repose  " ;  but,  after  all,  this 
merely  appears  to  be  a  sufficient  reply  because  we 
are  so  accustomed  to  the  fact  itself ;  it  is  no 
explanation  —  it  is  simply  a  re-statement  of  the 
original  problem.  Stones  do  not  require  a  special 
period  of  repose,  nor  do  plants,  nor  even  some  of 
the  lowest  animals.  Nay,  in  the  human  body  itself 
there  are  two  important  sets  of  organs  which  work 
on  ceaselessly,  night  and  day,  never  pausing  or 
resting, —  the  heart  and  the  breathing  apparatus, — 
and  tlicre  is  at  first  sight  no  apparent  reason  why 
one  part  of  our  frame  should  need  such  extended 
repose,  while  another  goes  on  moving  and  Jicting 
with  unfailing  freshness  from  year's  end  to  year's 
end.  However  deep  our  slumber  may  be,  the 
blood  is  still  being  pumped  up  vigorously  through 
its  channels  by  the  i)owerful  muscles  of  the  heart, 
and  the  breath  is  still  being  regularly  drawn  in 
and  out  by  the  slow  and  even  movements  of  the 
gently  rising  and  falling  chest.  Some  sufficient 
reason  must  certainly  exist  why  heart  and  lungs 
should  difler  so  cons[)icuously  in  this  respect  from 
brain  and  limbs.  If  we  consider  the  true  nature 
and  meaning  of  sleep,  we  shall  se<i  that  such   a 


G8  SLEEP. 

reitsoTi  can  actuallv  be  asslcrned  for  this  remarkable 
difference. 

Ill  the  world  at  large,  night  follows  day  with  un- 
erring regularity ;  and  night  is  a  time  when  most 
animals  cannot  readily  perform  their  usual  func- 
tions, or  exert  their  usual  activities.  To  be  sure, 
there  are  some  small  eyeless  creatures  which  swim 
about  in  ponds  and  rivers,  or  in  the  depths  of  the 
sea,  to  which  night  and  day  are  all  the  same,  and 
yet  in  whose  simple  little  organization  the  necessity 
for  sleep  has  never  yet  arisen.  Furthermore, 
there  are  some  specially  nocturnal  animals,  even 
among  the  higher  grades  in  the  world  of  nature, 
such  as  bats,  owls,  and  badgers,  whose  peculiar 
case  must  be  considered  later,  as  exhibiting  the 
true  object  of  slee[)  in  a  very  special  and  topsy- 
turvy manner.  But  taking  the  earth  as  a  whole, 
no  fact  is  more  conspicuous  in  its  arrangement 
than  the  fact  that  life  generally  is  vivid  and  active 
during  the  hours  of  daylight,  while  it  is  su])pressed 
and  dormant  during  the  hours  of  night.  To 
creatures  with  eyes  —  excluding  for  the  time  being 
a  few  obvious  exceptions  already  noted — day  is 
of  course  the  natural  time  for  seeking  food,  for 
building  nests,  or  digging  burrows,  for  performing 
all  the  thousand  and  one  varied  acts  of  every-day 
life,  either  of  tlie  h)wer  world  or  of  humanity 
itself.  The  enormous  majority  of  our  dumb  fel- 
low-creatures walk  or  fly  about  freely  in  the  open 


SLEEP.  69 

sniisliine,  and  retire  to  tlieir  dens,  holes,  or  burrows 
witli  tlie  sh.ides  of  night.  In  other  words,  d;iy  is 
the  most  convenient  time  for  action,  and  night 
is  tlie  most  convenient  time  for  repose  and  rest. 

Now,  whatever  part  of  our  bodies  is  exercised  at 
any  moment  is  thereb}'"  to  some  extent  used  up 
and  rendered  less  fit  for  similar  exercise  in  future. 
This  is  true  even  with  the  apparently  untiring 
heart  itself.  At  each  pulsation  it  uses  up  a  por- 
tion of  its  strength  ;  but  in  the  very  slight  inter- 
val between  the  pulsations  it  rests  ;  and  during 
that  brief  moment  of  rest  it  rebuilds  and  restores 
itself  against  its  next  effort.  The  interspace  of 
repose  is  there  indeed  exceedingly  short  and 
almost  imperceptible,  yet  in  that  fleeting  fraction 
of  a  second  the  tissues  of  the  heart  find  time 
enough  to  extract  from  the  circulating  fluid  a 
store  of  nourishment  sufficient  to  replace  them  on 
a  sound  working  basis.  But  in  most  parts  of  our 
bodies  the  intervals  of  work  and  restoration  are 
far  more  protracted.  If  we  take  a  long  walk,  or 
climb  a  steep  hill,  or  pull  a  boat  against  stream 
for  half  an  hour,  we  are  conscious  of  a  marked 
feeling  of  fatigue  in  our  legs  or  arms,  as  the  case 
may  be ;  we  have  in  so  far  unbuilt  tlie  material  of 
our  bodies,  and  we  need  rej)ose  to  set  them  right 
Jigain.  But  this  repose  does  not  merely  mean,  as 
we  might  at  first  sight  imagine,  a  cessation  from 
work ;  it  means  also  an  actual  rebuilding  of  the 


70  SLEEP. 

wasted  organs.  There  is  no  reason  wliy  simple 
lying-by  sliould  mend  a  wearied  muscle  any  more 
than  it  would  mend  a  broken  watch;  there  must 
be  a  positive  process  of  renewal  in  the  expended 
tissue.  If,  after  our  steep  climb  uphill,  we  sit 
down  upon  a  bench  at  the  top,  and  rest  our  weary 
limbs,  then  so  long  as  we  remain  still  the  wasted 
muscles  are  actually  undergoing  a  rebuilding  pro- 
cess—  they  are  being  restored  to  their  original 
condition  by  taking  up  their  proper  material  from 
the  blood  tliat  perpetually  circuhites  through 
them.  That  is  why,  after  a  few  minutes'  rest,  we 
are  able  to  go  on  again  almost  as  fresh  as  ever; 
the  muscles  aie  once  more  put  into  working  order, 
and  the  machine  is  ready  to  begin  operations  again. 
The  longer  the  exercise,  however,  the  longer  must 
be  the  period  of  rest  and  repair,  and,  after  a 
whole  day's  active  employment,  we  need  a  whole 
night's  uninterrupted  repose. 

Still,  even  this  consideration  does  not  sufficiently 
explain  wliy  that  needful  rest  should  necessarily 
take  the  form  of  sleep.  It  might  reasonably  be 
asked,  "  Would  not  mere  muscular  repose  do  just  as 
well  ?  Why  should  we  require  slumber  in  addition 
to  inactivity?  Why  might  we  not  just  put  our 
legs  up  on  a  sofa,  and  read  or  talk  the  whole  night 
through  ? "  Everybody  knows  that  such  mere 
muscular  rest  is  not  sufficient ;  and  the  reason  is 
because  we  have  a  mind  as  well  as  a  body,  a  brain 


SLEEP.  71 

and  nervous  system  as  well  as  legs  and  arms  and 
muscles.  After  a  certain  length  of  exercise,  our 
eyes,  our  ears,  our  tongues,  and  our  nerves  grow 
tired  and  used  up  —  they  need  rest  as  well  as  our 
larger  members.  Above  all,  the  brain  itself  has 
then  grown  dull  and  used  up  —  all  its  active  parts 
liave  become  quite  literally  worked  out,  and  re- 
quire to  be  once  more  rebuilt  and  restored,  just  as 
the  legs  do  after  a  long  day's  walk.  Sleep,  then, 
is  essentially  the  time  when  repair  predominates 
over  waste,  as  in  waking  life  waste  predomi- 
nates over  repair.  And  it  Is  more  especially  the 
time  when  rei)air  takes  place  in  the  brain  and  the 
great  organs  connected  with  it.  We  may  rest  our 
legs  or  arms  by  lying  down  on  a  sofa;  but  we 
cannot  rest  our  brain  except  by  sleeping.  To  lie 
awake  all  night,  however  soft  our  couch,  and  to 
sleep  soundly  are  two  very  different  things.  Lying 
awake,  we  may  rest  and  restore  our  limbs,  but  we 
are  not  restori'  our  brain  and  nerves.  At  last, 
however,  in  ordinary  cases,  the  brain  ceases  to 
work — we  think  no  longer,  we  are  asleep.  Then 
the  task  of  restoration  begins  apace  ;  the  blood 
quickly  builds  up  the  wasted  organs  of  the  various 
faculties,  and  next  morning,  as  soon  as  the  work 
of  repair  is  completed,  we  wake  up  again  fresh 
and  vigorous. 

It  is  clear,  then,  why,  in  most  cases,  night  has 
become  the  time  for  sleep.     Since  the  brain,  even 


72  SLEEP. 

more  than  any  other  organ,  cannot  go  on  working 
continuously  without  any  time  for  restoration, 
and  since  the  <lay  is  tlie  easiest  period  for  men 
and  animals  to  see  in  as  they  go  about  their  vari- 
ous avocations,  it  is  natural  enough  that  the  niglit, 
"wlien  no  man  can  work,"  should  be  assigned  as 
the  proper  season  for  rest  and  repair.  Almost 
every  kind  of  higher  creature  has  accordiiigly 
adapted  itself  to  this  obvious  necessity.  And  so 
ingrained  therefore  lias  this  habit  become  of  passing 
a  long  daily  period  in  repose  of  the  brain  and 
nerves  that  even  those  animals  which  have  taken 
to  nocturnal  habits,  to  escape  their  enemies  or  to 
Becuie  their  p''ey,  merely  reverse  the  ordinary  rule, 
sleeping  in  the  daytime  and  waking  by  night.  In 
/  fact,  though  some  very  simi)le  and  lowly  things 
!  can  do  without  sleep  almost  altogether,  because 
they  only  go  catching  f(jod  and  digesting  it, 
without  eyes  or  thinking  apparatus,  no  animals  as 
high  in  the  scale  as  even  fish  or  reptiles  could 
possibly  get  on  without  this  needful  period  of  rest 
and  slumber.  And  the  higher  tlie  type  of  life  the 
greater  the  necessity  for  sleep.  People  who  lead 
very  healthy  out-of-door  lives,  working  hard  with 
their  limbs  and  muscles,  and  eating  a  sufficiency 
of  good  plain  food,  can  do  with  comjjaratively  few 
hours  in  bed.  What  the}'^  need  to  repair  are 
mainly  the  muscles  and  the  nerves  supplied  to 
them,  as  well  as  the  eyes,  the  ears,  audi,  the  sini- 


SLEEP.  78 

pier  portions  of  the  brain.  But  people  who  have 
to  study  or  think  much,  people  who  use  their 
brains  largely,  people  who  have  many  calculations 
to  make,  people  much  })uzzletl  or  worried  about 
money  or  business  difficulties,  such  people  require 
comparatively  much  sleej),  though  they  often  are 
not  able  to  sleep  nearly  so  soundly  as  their  healthy 
outdoor-working  neighbors.  This  is  the  true 
answer  to  Shakspeare's  famous  inquiry,  "  Why 
rather.  Sleep,  liest  thou  in  smoky  cribs  than  in 
the  perfumed  chambers  of  the  great  ?  "  People 
who  have  not  overworked  their  brains  fall  readily 
into  a  profound  slumber,  and  rise  from  it  refreshed 
and  happy.  But,  when  a  man  has  too  many  men- 
tal cares  and  occupations,  when  he  is  distracted 
and  worried  by  endless  troubles,  his  overwrought 
brain  gets  often  into  a  feverish,  restless  condition, 
and  he  cannot  obtain  the  repose  he  so  much  needs 
and  longs  for.  His  brain  will  go  on  working  in 
spite  of  him.  Sleeplessness,  in  fact,  is  the  com- 
mon complaint  of  brain-workers ;  they  require 
rest,  but  they  cannot  get  it.  This  is  a  very  bad 
state  indeed  to  fall  into,  and  it  should  be  guarded 
against  by  every  means  possible.  Narcotics  and 
sleeping-mixtures  are  of  extremely  little  use  in- 
deed, or  rather  they  are  poisons  in  the  long  run  ; 
the  one  real  remedy  is  complete  cessation  from  over- 
work before  it  is  too  late.  Not  to  sleep  is  to  wear 
out  the  brain  by  excessive  and  ceaseless  activity. 


■■TC 


74  SLEEP. 

Trouhled  or  disturbed  sleep  is  really  sleep  dur- 
ing which  the  brain  is  not  entiiely  resting. 
Sometimes,  in  exceptional  cii'cunistances,  and  es- 
pecially when  we  have  been  over-excited  or 
over-stimulated  in  any  way,  the  brain  almost 
refuses  to  rest  at  all ;  we  fall  into  a  state  of  more 
or  less  perfect  insomnia;  and,  even  if  we  manage 
to  drop  off  somehow  for  a  few  minutes,  we  are 
vaguely  conscious  all  the  time  that  the  brain  is 
still  working  of  its  own  accord,  so  to  speak,  that 
flitting  dreams  are  hovering  about  us  in  the  midst 
of  our  imperfect  slumber,  and  that  the  whirl  and 
stir  to  which  we  have  exposed  ourselves  now  re- 
fuse to  sober  down  at  once  into  absolute  quiet. 
In  such  circumstances  the  best  relief  is  to  bathe 
the  head  and  brows  in  cold  water  until  the  fever- 
ish condition  has  partially  subsided.  This  common 
and  effectual  remedy  better  explains  than  almost 
anything  else  could  do  the  true  meaning  and 
cause  of  sleeplessness.  The  blood  is  circulating 
too  freely  through  the  brain  and  keeping  it  up  to 
its  wakeful  degree  of  activity  —  such  activity 
being  indeed  often  in  excess  of  ordinary  excite- 
ment ;  by  applying  cold  water  the  sufferer  drives 
back  the  abnormal  flow  of  the  circulatorv  fluid, 
and  so  ensures  the  needful  rest  to  the  overwrought 
nervous  centres.  So  simple  a  physical  remedy  as 
this  proves  often  far  more  efficacious  than  all  the 
purely  mental  nostrums,  such  as  repeating  over 


SLEEP.  75 

and  over  the  same  syllable,  or  counting  the  imagi- 
nary sheep  which  leap  over  a  gate  —  processes 
that  frequently  rather  increase  than  allay  the  in- 
ternal irritation  to  which  the  sleeplessness  is 
ultimately  due. 


VII. 

HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE. 

If  any  stranger  were  to  ask  an  ordinary  Ger- 
man child  what  idea  or  object  it  associates  most 
closely  with  the  twenty-fifth  of  December,  the 
little  Teuton  would  undoubtedly  answer,  "A 
Christmas  tree."  The  trim  and  ui)rigiit  ever- 
green spruce  fir,  gayly  lighted  with  red  and  yellow 
waxen  tapers,  and  hung  around  with  a  glorious 
profusion  of  wooden  dolls,  toy  soldiers,  and  tin 
trumpets,  forms  the  very  embodiment  and  central 
point  of  the  Christmas  festivities  to  the  fair-haired 
and  blue-eyed  children  of  the  northern  Father- 
land. If  the  same  question  were  similarly  put  to 
a  budding  ten-year-old  American  citizen,  the 
young  New  Englander  would  promptly  answer, 
"I  guess  it's  Santa  Clans."  The  jovial  saint  who 
descends  the  chinnieys  of  American  houses  while 
the  youthful  republicans  are  slee[)ing  soundly, 
with  their  stockings  hung  expectant  and  open- 
mouthed  at  their  little  bedsides,  is  to  them  the 
prominent  feature  and  main  interest  of  the  trans- 
planted Yule-tide.  But,  if  a  group  of  merry,  red- 
cheeked  English  children  were  asked  in  turn  what 

76 


HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE.  77 

picture  Christmas  especially  called  up  in  tlieir 
eager  little  niinds,  tliey  would  answer,  we  fancy, 
in  unanimous  chorus,  "A  big  plum-pudding  all  on 
fire,  with  a  s[)rig  of  holly-berries  stuck  in  the  very 
middle."  Mistletoe  and  hollv  indeed,  thoucch 
both  of  them  owe  their  connection  with  the  great 
mid-winter  feast  to  a  pagan  origin,  have  wound 
themselves  so  closely  round  the  very  core  of  the 
chief  Christian  English  festival  that  we  can 
hardly  think  of  Christinas  without  instinctively 
thinking  at  the  same  time  of  those  two  familiar 
Christmas  decorations.  When  circumstances  lead 
an  Englishman  to  spend  the  day  of  the  Nativity 
in  distant  lands,  there  is  nothing  that  he  misses 
more  or  regrets  more  deeply  than  the  mingled 
white  and  scarlet  berries  of  our  British  Christmas- 
tide.  It  is  all  very  well  cooking  a  festive  turkey 
on  the  sweltering  plains  of  Jamaica  and  Trinidad, 
or  making  believe  with  i)lum-pudding  and  mince- 
j)ies  in  the  mid-summer  heat  of  an  Australian 
December ;  the  travelling  Britisher  turns  back 
his  inner  gaze  with  longing  glance  upon  the  flesh- 
jjots  of  Leadenhall  Market,  and  misses  among  the 
gorgeous  tropical  exotics  the  mistletoe  and  holly 
of  Covent  Garden.  Even  in  Canada,  where  snow 
without  and  roaring  logs  within  seem  to  recall 
more  vividly  the  English  Christmas  of  the  Tudor 
period,  the  visitor  from  the  mother-country  finds 
the  green  hemlock  with  oranges  hung  upon    its 


78  HOLLY  AND  MUSTLETOE. 

boiiglis  by  cunningly  inserted  wires  but  a  poor 
substitute  for  tlie  genuine  old-fasliioned  ])ictorial 
associations  of  the  crinkly  holly-leaf  and  the 
pallid  mistletoe. 

The  use  of  holly-berries  for  mid-winter  decora- 
tion runs  back,  like  so  many  other  festive  prac- 
tices, to  a  positively  immemorial  and  unknown 
antiquity.  Long  before  Christmas  as  a  Christian 
holiday  existed  at  all,  the  Christmas  decorations 
were  hung  up  during  the  December  feast-time  in 
many  an  early  British  and  Continental  household. 
Everywhere  indeed  the  idea  of  keeping  high 
festival  about  the  winter  solstice  has  naturally 
suggested  itself,  quite  apart  fi-om  the  circum- 
stances of  particular  religions  and  races,  to  every 
branch  of  the  human  family.  To  say  the  truth, 
Christmas  itself  is  not  theoretically  the  chief  holi- 
day of  the  Christian  year ;  that  honor  has 
always  been  accorded  by  ecclesiastical  writers  to 
Easter  Day,  the  festival  of  the  Resurrection,  as 
the  twenty-fifth  of  December  is  of  the  Nativity. 
But  in  practical  popular  estimation,  especially 
among  the  little  ones,  Christmas  holds  undoubt- 
edly the  first  place  on  the  entire  roll  of  the  year's 
liolidays.  And  it  does  so  not  so  much  because  it 
is  the  feast  of  the  Nativity  as  because  it  is  the 
festival  which  happens  to  fall  nearest  to  the  mid- 
winter solstice.  There  is  something  very  natural 
in  the  practice  of  keeping  holiday  in  the  depth  of 


HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE.  79 

winter,  espoeially  among  simple  primitive  iind 
agricultural  pe()[)ie.  The  labors  of  the  year  are 
then  suspended;  the  tasks  of  last  autumn's 
harvest  are  fully  completed,  tlie  tasks  of  next 
spring's  sowing  have  not  yet  begun  ;  there  is  an 
obvious  breatliing-space  for  mirth  and  rehixation; 
the  tiller  of  the  soil  can  tiien  lean  back  in  his  own 
arm-chair,  and  take  his  ease  beside  ins  own  lire- 
place ;  he  has  corn  in  bis  granary  and  malt  in  his 
brewliouse,  apples  in  his  loft,  and  leisure  in  his 
spirit.  Moreover,  the  time  of  year  itself  naturally 
inclines  one  to  laziness  and  to  indoor  enjoyment. 
Without,  the  fields  and  streets  are  cold  and 
muddy;  within,  the  fire  burns  bright,  and  the 
temptation  to  set  one's  feet  on  the  fender  and 
enjoy  it  idly  is  almost  irresistible.  Hence,  from 
all  time,  men  have  made  the  mid-winter  breath- 
ing-space a  sort  of  excuse  for  a  general  holiday, 
and  the  practice  has  descended,  amid  all  changes 
of  guise  or  of  religious  significance,  from  the  easy- 
going husbandmen  of  prehistoric  ages  to  the 
modern  work-a-day  world  of  industrial  England. 
The  Teutonic  races  kept  their  Yule-tide,  the 
Romans  kept  their  wild  and  boisterous  Saturnalia, 
the  Celtic  peoples  kept  their  Druidical  holidays, 
all  towards  the  close  of  chill  December,  long 
before  the  popular  feast  was  hallowed  and  re- 
christened  by  the  younger  and  purer  religion  of 
latter-da  V     Christendom.     And    even     now     the 


80  HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE. 

Fieiicli  keep  up  New  Year's  Day  as  their  great 
annual  fete,  thus  showing  how  much  more  tlie 
festivities  depend,  as  we  rightly  say,  upon  "the 
season  "  than  upon  the  particular  religious  sanc- 
tion. 

When  Christmas  came,  however,  it  inherited,  as 
it  were,  from  Roman  Saturnalia  and  Druidical 
festival  many  of  their  old  distinctive  heathen 
ceremonies.  In  ancient  Rome  friends  sent  one 
another  sprigs  of  holly  at  the  mid-winter  feast,  as 
an  emblem  of  good  wishes  for  the  coming  year ; 
and  early  Christians,  ado[)ting  the  custom,  con- 
nected it  with  their  own  lioliday  of  tlie  Nativity, 
perhaps  regarding  the  evergreen  character  of  the 
plant  as  emblematic  of  the  eternal  life  secured 
them  b}'  the  events  inaugurated  on  the  very  first 
of  all  (.'in-istnias  mornings.  So,  too,  the  early 
Celtic  races,  in  England  and  on  the  Continent, 
attached  some  mysterious  interest  to  the  mistle- 
toe, and  connected  it  with  tlie  universal  mid- 
winter festivities ;  and  here  in  Britain  the  connec- 
tion has  still  survived,  though  the  mystical  vir- 
tues are  almost  forgotten,  save  in  the  kind  of 
sanctuary  which  the  mistletoe-bough  affords  for  a 
certain  amount  of  harndess  ilirtation  not  else- 
where or  at  other  times  so  openly  permitted. 
The  liberty  to  kiss  a  pretty  girl  beneath  the 
Cliristuias  mistletoe  lingers  on,  in  fact,  as  the  last 
faint  dying  relic  of  the  extreme  license  of  the  old 


HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE.  81 

pagan  Saturnalia.  So  long  as  gorse  is  in  blossom, 
it  is  true,  —  as  the  old  proverb  tells  us,  —  then  is 
kissing  still  in  fashion ;  but  under  the  mistletoe- 
bough  it  is  open  to  all,  and  none  may  pretend  to 
escape  the  light  penalty.  It  is  strange  indeed  to 
fuid  practices  so  opposed  in  their  origin  still 
loitering  on  side  by  side  ;  for  the  practical  modern 
Christmas  is,  in  fact,  a  conglomerate  of  many  dis- 
tinct forms  of  heathendom  with  a  great  religi  )us 
Christian  festival.  And  yet,  on  the  whole,  no 
happier  combination  of  quaint  old  customs  and 
pleasant  memories  could  easily  be  manufactured. 

The  holly-tree  itself,  which  supplies  the  red 
berries  so  intimately  bound  up  with  the  festivities 
of  the  season,  is  a  truly  wild  British  evergreen 
shrub,  a  native  of  all  southern  and  central 
Europe.  Tliough  we  usually  see  it  merely  as  a 
small  and  somewhat  stunted  bush,  planted  in 
thickest  hedges,  or  quaintly  clip[)ed  in  cottage 
gardens  with  old-fashioned  precision  into  prim 
shapes  of  cones  or  pyramids,  it  will  yet  grow 
under  favorable  circumstances  into  a  tall  and 
handsome  leafy  tree,  some  forty  feet  in  height, 
wit'i  a  long,  smooth,  whitish  trunk  and  a  spread- 
ing crest  of  rounded  boughs  and  foliage.  The 
holm-bush,  as  our  ancestors  oftener  called  it, 
tlirives  especially  on  the  cold  damp  clays  of  the 
Surrey  weald,  where  it  gives  its  name  to  the  well 
known   expanse   of   Iloluiwood   Common,  a  wide 


82  HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE. 

and  tangled  thicket  of  well  grown  liolly-trees. 
The  familiar  crinkled  leaves,  with  their  sharp 
spiny  angles,  are  of  course  intended  to  deter  the 
cattle  from  browsing  on  the  foliage,  and  so  hinder- 
ing the  proper  growth  of  the  tree  to  which  they 
belong.  As  a  general  rule,  all  the  shrubs  and 
bushes  which  grow  on  such  very  open  unenclosed 
spaces  are  similarly  protected  from  the  hungry 
attacks  of  cows  or  donkeys  —  for  exami)le,  furze 
is  armed  with  stiff  thorny  leaves,  blackthorn  with 
sharp  f)rickles,  dog-rose  with  hooked  thorns,  and 
may  with  smart  defensive  spines.  To  the  self- 
same category  belong  also  nettles,  thistles,  black- 
berry-brambles, and  buckthorns.  All  nlike  need 
to  be  protected  from  the  ceaseless  depredations  of 
browsing  animals,  and  all  gain  the  requisite  pro- 
tection by  producing  thorns,  prickles,  or  stinging 
hairs  as  defensive  armor.  It  is  worth  while  to 
notice,  however,  that  the  holly,  which  grows  far 
taller  in  favorable  circumstances  than  any  other 
of  these  well  armed  shrubs,  puts  forth,  as  a  rule, 
the  prickly  leaves  only  on  its  lower  branches, 
where  the}''  are  openly  exposed  to  the  attacks  of 
animals.  As  soon  as  it  attains  a  reasonable 
height  above  the  ground,  the  branches  which  rise 
well  out  of  reach  of  the  browsing  enemies  are 
covered  only  with  smooth  round  blades,  not  at  all 
unlike  those  of  the  connnon  laurel.  Nature  gives 
the  holly  protection  just  so  long  as  the  tree  needs 


HOLLY  AND  mSTLETOE.  83 

it ;  when  it  becomes  no  more  nece.ssary,  slie  witli- 
di'iiws  the  murderous  Si)ines  so  annoying  to  the 
tender  noses  of  cattle,  and  economizes  the  mate- 
rial for  other  and  more  useful  purposes. 

Few  people,  probably,  ever  notice  the  precursors 
of  the  brilliant  scarlet  berries,  in  the  shape  of 
densely  clustered  and  delicate  pale  white  Uowers, 
which  cover  the  boughs  of  holly,  in  the  corners 
between  leaf  and  stem,  about  the  middle  of  May 
or  beginning  of  June;  and  yet  holly-blossom, 
when  one  conies  to  look  closely  into  it,  is  in  its 
own  way  an  extremely  dainty  and  beautiful 
llower ;  and  the  effect  of  the  dense  masses  of 
pallid  white  rosettes  against  the  glossy  diirk  green 
of  the  waved  foliage  is  almost  as  striking,  when 
once  observed,  as  that  of  the  scarlet  fruit  a  little 
later  in  the  season  against  the  self-same  exc^uisite 
background  of  subdued  verdure.  Only  close  ob- 
servers of  nature,  however,  watch  the  holly  in 
these  its  earlier  stages,  and  notice  how  the  deli- 
cate and  shoi't-lived  petals  fall  off  entire  in  a  single 
piece  as  soon  as  the  flowering  season  is  over, 
strewing  the  ground  below  in  thick  profusion 
with  a  little  shower  of  tiansUicent  witch-like 
blossom.  Soon  the  berries  begin  slowly  to  swell, 
and  in  the  autunni  to  acquire  their  rich  red  or, 
less  often,  bright  yellow  color.  It  is  a  com- 
mon and  pretty  superstition  among  dwellers  in 
the  country  that,  when  holly-berries  are   excep- 


84  HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE. 

tioii.'illy  abundant  on  the  trees,  a  hard  winter  is 
sure  to  follow  —  the  Father  of  nature,  these  chil- 
dren of  simple  faith  believe,  intending  to  send  a 
severe  season,  provides  beforehand  an  abuuvlant 
supply  of  food-stuffs  for  those  little  pensioners  of 
his  mercy,  not  one  of  Avhom  falls  to  the  ground 
without  his  knowledge.  Though  observation 
hardly  succeeds  in  bearing  out  this  graceful  fancy 
of  the  rustic  mind,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
holly-berries  do  really  play  their  part  in  nature  as 
food  for  birds,  especially  during  severe  winters. 
They  never  fall  of  themselves  from  the  trees,  like 
casual  seeds  unintended  for  winged  visitors  to 
feed  upon,  but  hang  there  for  ever  unless  de- 
voured and  so  got  rid  of  by  the  little  denizens  of 
our  hedges  and  copses.  After  a  mild  season,  they 
may  be  seen  blackening  and  withering  away  on 
the  boughs  in  spring,  as  yet  untouched,  but  never 
dropping ;  for  the  birds  will  eat  them  only  when 
other  food  fails  through  stress  of  frost,  regarding 
them  as  a  last  resource,  like  the  bread  and  cheese 
of  the  little  French  princess  who  wondered  people 
should  starve  rather  than  live  upon  that  homely 
diet.  In  fact,  holly-berries  are  specially  adapted 
to  dispersion  by  birds,  which  unconsciously  aid  in 
sowing  their  seeds  and  so  assisting  the  plant  in 
i\eeping  up  a  fresh  sup[)ly  to  future  ages.  All 
fruits  or  seeds  which  thus  appeal  to  the  assistance 
of  winged  allies   are   briglitly  colored,  very  con- 


HOLLY  AND    MLSTLETOE.  85 

spienous,  and  sweet  or  pul[)y,  while  all  tliose 
wliich  would  be  injured  by  their  intervention  are 
brown  or  green,  very  little  noticeable,  and  quite 
wanting  in  pulpy  surroundings  or  sugary  juices. 
Holly-berries,  though  harmless  to  the  little  crea- 
tures for  whose  use  they  are  primarily  intended, 
contain  an  acrid  principle  poisonous  to  human 
beings,  and  children  have  occasionally  lost  their 
lives  through  eating  the  tempting-looking  but 
tasteless  fruit  in  too  great  profusion. 

The  general  interest  in  the  holly-tree  is  so 
greatly  confined  to  the  employment  of  its  berries 
for  C'hristmas  decorations  that  the  world  at  large 
forgets  for  the  most  part  its  other  numerous  and 
valuable  uses.  Besides  being  widely  planted  as 
an  ornamental  tree,  especially  in  the  pretty  varie- 
gated varieties  known  as  gold  and  silver  leaved 
hollies,  it  is  grown  to  a  considerable  extent  for 
the  sake  of  its  wood,  which  is  liard  grained  and 
finely  fibred,  so  as  to  make  it  a  very  serviceable 
material  for  turners  and  cabinet-makers.  Neatly 
blacked,  it  does  dut}^  in  place  of  high-priced 
ebony,  and  it  is  the  usual  stuff  from  which  to 
manufacture  the  handles  of  tin  tea-pots  and  of 
connnon  cottatje  knives  and  forks.  Bird-lime  for 
snaring  its  winged  visitors  is  made  from  the 
sticky  matter  in  the  bark;  and  even  the  berries 
themselves  j>ossess  a  considerable  commercial 
value,  as  everybody  knows  who  has  ever  seen   the 


86  HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE. 

vast  wagon-loads  wliicli  pour  into  London  from 
the  surrounding  counties  during  the  few  weeks 
immediately  preceding  a  cold  Christmas. 

The  mystic  interest  of  mistletoe,  however,  has 
alwa3's  very  far  transcended  the  merely  pictoiial 
beauty  of  the  scarlet  holly.  There  is  something 
about  the  very  appearance  of  that  weird  and 
singnlar  parasite  which  at  once  suggests  to  tlie 
mind  the  instinctive  notion  of  uncanny  mystery. 
The  curious  dead-alive  green  of  the  leathery 
leaves,  the  odd  forking  of  the  jointed  branchlets, 
the  strange  translucent  color  of  the  glutinous 
berries,  the  marvellous  origin  and  mode  of 
growth,  all  cons[iire  to  give  to  mistletoe  a  first 
place  among  the  mystic  plants  of  primeval  magic. 
Every  sprig  of  mistletoe  grows  parasitically  in  the 
fork  of  a  bough  on  some  other  tree,  the  English 
species  infesting  especially  the  apple,  and  after 
that  the  elm,  seldom  or  almost  never —  in  spite  of 
common  opinion  to  the  contrary  —  the  British 
oak-tree.  The  popular  idea  amongst  townsmen 
that  mistletoe  is  peculiarly  apt  to  inhabit  oaks  is 
due,  no  doubt,  in  the  main,  to  imperfect  memories 
of  English  history  learned  in  childhood.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  mistletoe  hardly  ever  grows  on 
those  particular  trees,  and  it  was  tlje  very  rarity 
of  an  oak  mistletoe  that  gave  it  its  special  and 
peculiar  sanctity.  Tlie  Druids  —  if  the  old  story 
be  true  at  all  —  venerated  the  plant  just  because 


HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE.  87 

of  its  uniisual  haLitat.  To  be  sure,  there  is 
another  kind  of  mistletoe  in  southern  Europe, 
closely  similar  to  our  own,  which  does  actually 
prefer  the  oak  as  its  permanent  dwelling-place; 
but  our  British  plant  confines  itself  almost 
entirely  to  the  mossy  branches  of  the  common 
apple-tree.  In  the  orchards  of  Herefordshire  and 
the  adjoining  counties  it  covers  many  of  the  old- 
est boughs,  and  London  is  largely  supplied  with 
its  Christmas  emblems  from  these  places.  But 
the  home  supply  is  not,  in  itself,  equal  to  the 
enormous  demand  —  for  what  English  liouse  is 
without  its  sprig  of  mistletoe  in  the  festive 
season? — and  foreign  countries  have  to  be  put 
under  contribution,  crate-loads  of  the  parasite 
being  annually  imported  from  Normandy,  Pic- 
ardy,  Holland,  and  Belgium.  The  imports  are 
reckoned  by  the  ton  in  quantity,  and  more  than 
two  thousand  crates  are  needed  to  supply  the 
osculatory  necessities  of  London  alone  in  a  single 
season. 

Mistletoe  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  vege- 
table parasites  in  the  whole  range  of  plant-life. 
The  berries  are  sown  and  dispersed  b}'  the  agency 
of  birds,  which  eat  them  greedily,  and  in  so  doing 
get  some  of  the  sticky  glutinous  seeds  gummed  to 
their  bills,  their  feet,  and  their  feathers.  Flying 
about  from  tree  to  tree,  they  rub  off  the  seeds  they 
have  thus  unconsciously  transported,  and   leave 


88  HOLLY  AND  MISTLETOE. 

them  clinging  to  the  customary  rubbing-places,  in 
the  forks  of  trees.  An  experienced  observer  has 
watched  them  performing  this  involuntary  opera- 
tion of  seed-sowing  many  times  over  in  a  single 
orchard,  and  has  afterwards  noticed  the  gummy 
seeds  sticking  to  the  crannies  of  the  bark  where 
the  birds  have  deposited  them.  In  fact,  the 
viscid  character  of  the  fruit  has  been  acquired  for 
this  precise  purpose,  to  enable  the  seeds  to  gain  a 
firm  footing  in  the  place  where  they  are  by  nature 
fitted  to  root  themselves  and  thrive  exceedingly. 
The  young  plant,  having  thus  been  started  in  life 
under  favorable  auspices,  soon  begins  to  attach 
itself  by  a  thickened  bulb  at  its  base  to  the  living 
tissues  of  the  unfortunate  apple-tree,  and  to  suck 
from  its  veins  the  sap  or  life-blood  which  the 
apple  had  already  elaborated  for  the  use  and 
growth  of  its  own  fruiting  branches.  Sending 
forth  yellowish  green  succulent  sprouts,  with 
oddly  arranged  pairs  of  opposite  leaves,  this  vege- 
table robber  soon  begins  to  flower,  the  little 
inconspicuous  blossoms  appearing  in  the  spring  of 
its  second  year,  though  they  are  so  unnoticeable 
that  few  save  close  observers,  in  all  probability 
ever  detect  them.  The  flowers  are  of  two  kinds 
—  one  barren,  collected  together  in  little  bunches 
in  the  forks  of  the  stem,  the  other  fertile  and  soli- 
tary, growing  out  at  last  into  the  little  transpar- 
ent   jelly-like    berries.     Each    berry    contains    a 


HOLLY  AND  MLSTLETOE.  89 

single  seed  enclosed  in  a  very  glutinous  pulp,  and 
ripens  about  the  middle  of  December.  The  very 
word  "viscid"  by  wliich  we  describe  such  sticky 
substances  is  itself  derived  from  the  Latin  vlsciim, 
the  name  of  the  mistletoe  in  the  tongue  of  the 
Romans.  Like  the  holly,  the  berries  of  the  mis- 
tletoe are  accused  of  being  poisonous,  and  deaths 
are  even  said  to  have  occurred  from  eating  them ; 
but,  if  so,  the  danger  must  be  due  rather  to  their 
glutinous  nature  than  to  any  active  poisonous 
principle,  none  such  being  discoverable  within  the 
pulp  of  the  berry.  It  may  be  taken  for  granted, 
however,  that  the  alarming  increase  in  infant 
indigestion  which  usually  manifests  itself  imme- 
diately after  the  Christmas  festivities  is  due  rather 
to  excessive  indulgence  in  plum-pudding  and 
mince-pie  than  to  the  deleterious  properties  of 
holly  and  mistletoe. 


VIII. 

KNOWLEDGE  AND  OPINION. 

"  What  is  the  use,"  say  many  good  people  every 
day  in  the  present  age,  "of  these  new-fangied 
modern  scientific  men  ?  No  two  of  them  ever 
tell  us  the  same  thing  twice  ruiniing.  One  of 
them  advises  us  to  eat  nothing  at  all  but  bread 
and  vegetables  ;  another  assures  us  we  are  eter- 
nally and  immutably  constructed  for  a  mixed  diet 
of  beef  and  mutton.  Doctor  No.  1  declares  that 
cholera  is  due  to  a  small  creature,  which  he  calls 
by  some  terrific  name  or  other,  three  times  its 
own  length,  a  bacterium,  or  a  microbe,  or  a  bacil- 
lus (as  if  he  wanted  to  frighten  us) ;  Doctor 
No.  2  informs  us  solemnlv  that  it  is  due  to  noth, 
ing  of  the  sort,  but  merely  depends  upon  that 
convenient  medical  Jack-of-all-trades,  'atmospheric 
conditions.'  Astronomer  the  first  is  profoundly 
convinced  that  the  spots  in  the  sun  are  electric 
storms  on  its  disturbed  surface ;  astronomer  the 
second  laughs  him  in  the  face  because  he  ventures 
to  assert  that  the  red  sunsets  we  all  so  much 
admire  are  ultimately  dependent  on  the  volcanic 

dust  from  the  eruption  of  Krakatoa  more  than  a 

90 


KNOWLEDQE  AND   OPINION.  91 

year  ago.  Whatever  iVfr.  A.  ventures  to  believe, 
Mr.  B.  delights  in  disproving.  Wiiile  tiiey  pre- 
tend to  teach  us  all  what  we  ought  to  think,  they 
are  always  at  loggerheads  among  themselves  as  to 
their  own  ideas  and  opinions.  Does  one  of  them 
set  forth  his  profound  discovery  that  man  is  de- 
scended from  a  primeval  monkey,  straightway 
another  of  them  proves  to  demonstration,  on 
scientific  principles,  that  men  and  monkeys  are 
separated  from  each  other  by  an  impassable  gulf, 
like  that  which  divided  Dives,  in  his  place  of  tor- 
ment, from  hap})y  Lazarus,  in  Abraham's  bosom. 
Does  one  of  them  give  us,  like  Mr.  Pickwick,  a 
Theory  of  Tittlebats,  with  S[)eculations  on  the 
Origin  of  the  Hampstead  Ponds,  fortliwith  another 
arises  to  show  that  the  theory  is  the  baseless 
fabric  of  a  dream,  and  that  the  ponds  were  really 
dug  out  a  hundred  years  ago  by  an  eminent  con- 
tractor for  the  su])ply  of  milk  (of  the  usual 
quality)  to  the  population  of  London.  No,  no ; 
these  men  who  presume  to  teach  us  all  are  really 
every  bit  as  ignorant  as  we  ourselves  are.  What- 
ever one  of  them  says  the  others  contradict ;  and, 
as  it  is  impossible  for  us  outsiders  to  decide  when 
doctors  disagree,  or  to  find  out  which  of  them  is 
in  the  right,  the  best  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to  dis- 
regard them  all  impartially  in  the  lump  together." 
Now,  on  the  first  blush  of  it,  this  familiar  com- 
plaint seems  really  to  have  a  great  deal  of  reason 


92  KNOWLEDGE  AND   OPINION. 

in  it.  Our  public  teachers  are  always  disagreeing 
among  themselves,  and  fighting  out  their  little 
differences,  as  Horace  said  actors  should  not  kill 
their  victims  on  the  stage,  "  before  the  people," 
in  the  daily  newspapers.  But,  when  we  come 
to  look  a  littie  more  closely  into  the  matter,  the 
justice  of  the  complaint  is  far  more  apparent  than 
real.  In  every  science,  or,  in  other  words,  in 
every  department  of  knowledge,  the  vast  body  of 
ascertained  fact  far  outweighs  the  small  residue  of 
undecided  opinion.  Take,  for  example,  mathe- 
matics. It  is  quite  certain  that  four  times  four 
are  sixteen ;  it  is  incontestably  proved  that,  if 
nine  be  taken  from  twenty,  eleven  remains;  and 
it  is  practically  undeniable  that  in  English  meas- 
urements two  pints  go  to  the  quart,  eight  ounces 
equal  half  a  pound,  and  thirty  pence  make  two- 
and-six-pence.  Take  history,  again.  It  may  not 
be  accurately  settled  whether  Julius  Cajsar  landed 
at  Deal  or  at  Dover;  whether  Queen  Elizabeth 
was  really  in  love  with  Essex ;  or  whether  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  at  Waterloo  did  or  did  not 
say,  "  Up,  Guards,  and  at  'em  !  "  —  but  at  least 
the  Roman  occupation  of  Britain,  the  main  facts 
as  to  the  Spanish  Armada,  and  the  historical 
reality  of  the  Battle  of  Waterloo,  are  fairly  beyond 
all  cavil.  There  may  be  persons  who  have  in  all 
seriousness  what  Archbishop  Whately  pretended 
to  have  for  a  satirical  reason,  "  Historic  Doubts  as 


\ 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  OPINION.  93 

to  tlie  Existence  of  Ntapoleon  Bonaparte";  but 
Biicli  persons,  if  any  there  be,  are  properly  consid- 
ered by  Her  Majesty's  Commissioners  in  Lunacy 
as  fit  subjects  for  their  polite  inquiries.  People 
may  be  ignorant  of  these  facts  —  a  great  many 
people  are ;  but  they  are  nevertheless  facts,  not 
mere  matters  of  opinion.  Not  to  know  them 
is  easy  enough,  but  seriously  to  doubt  them  is 
simply  ridiculous.  Though  many  estimable  Chi- 
nese are  doubtless  unaware  of  the  very  existence 
of  Regent  Street,  Regent  Street  is  nevertheless  a 
genuine,  a  solid,  and  a  sufficiently  tangible  reality. 
Nobody  who  has  ever  been  there  can  deny  its 
existence,  unless  he  is  either  a  confirmed  lunatic 
or  a  confirmed  teller  of  untruths. 

It  is  just  the  same  with  the  vast  mass  of  scien- 
tific knowledge.  For  science,  as  has  well  been 
said,  is  nothing  more  than  ordinary  experience, 
accurately  observed  and  reduced  to  rules  of  pre- 
cision. Everybody  knows  that  wood  burns;  that 
iron,  if  exposed  to  damp  and  air,  soon  rusts ;  that 
meat,  kept  too  long,  goes  bad ;  that  quicklime, 
wh«in  wetted,  steams  and  gets  warm.  Well, 
chemistry  is  only  a  systematic  collection  of  similar 
facts  about  an  immense  number  of  natural  and 
artificial  bodies.  Everybody  knows  that  in  cold 
weather  water  freezes ;  that  in  hot  weather  ice 
melts ;  that,  if  3'ou  stretch  India-rubber,  it  jumps 
back  again ;  that,  if  you  put  mutton-fut  upon  the 


94  KNOWLEDGE  AND   OPINION. 

fire,  it  melts  and  bubbles.  Well,  physics  is  only 
a  systematic  collection  of  similar  facts  about  all 
solids,  liquids,  and  gases.  Everybody  knows  that 
strawberries  grow  on  a  low  creeping  herb ;  that 
peaches  and  plums  have  always  stones  inside 
them  ;  that  if  you  i)lant  a  pea  in  the  ground,  a 
young  pea-plant  will  shortly  make  its  appearance ; 
that  thistledown  produces  a  crop  of  thistles ;  and 
that  grapes  are  yielded  only  by  the  vine.  Well, 
botany  is  nothing  more  than  a  sj'stematic  collec- 
tion of  similar  facts  about  all  plants,  trees,  and 
buslies.  In  the  same  way  every  science  consists 
merely  of  ascertained  knowledge  about  various 
groups  of  objects,  precisely  the  same  in  kind  as 
the  knowledge  which  every  one  of  us  possesses 
about  our  daily  experiences.  To  say  one  does  not 
believe  in  science  is  to  say,  in  other  words,  one 
does  not  believe  in  anything,  however  simple  and 
obvious.  For,  if  you  believe  that  fire  burns  your 
fingers,  that  is  a  fact  of  physical  and  physiological 
science.  If  you  believe  that  fowls  have  always 
gizzards,  that  is  a  fact  of  anatomical  science.  If 
you  believe  that  it  will  be  full  moon  on  Wednes- 
day week,  that  is  a  fact  of  astronomical  science. 
If  you  believe  that  London  is  in  England,  and 
that  the  shortest  way  thence  to  France  is  by 
Dover  and  Calais,  those  are  facts  of  geographical 
science.  Whether  one  discovers  these  truths  for 
one's  self,  or  reads  them  in  books,  or  learns  them 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  OPINION.  95 

in  childhood,  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  as 
regards  their  scientific  cliaracter.  Tlie  children 
in  a  West  Indian  school  have  never  seen  a  lump 
of  ice ;  but  they  are  taught  that  in  England  on 
cold  nights  water  freezes,  and  they  believe  it. 
We  ourselves  have  learnt  it  without  teaching; 
but  in  either  case  the  knowledge  is  equally  scien- 
tific. Very  few  of  us  have  been  to  Australia;  yet 
we  believe  in  the  existence  of  that  country  almost 
or  quite  as  firmly  as  if  we  had  actually  seen  it. 

Now,  science  as  a  whole  is  almost  entirely  made 
up  of  such  perfectly  well  ascertained  facts.  Even 
if  we  cannot  all  follow  the  reasoning  or  the 
experiments  by  which  they  were  reached  and 
proved  to  be  true,  we  are  bound  to  acce[)t  them 
on  the  authority  of  the  universal  voice  of  those 
who  can  follow  them.  We  all  see  that  five  and 
five  make  ten  (unless  we  are  absolutely  idiotic)  ; 
we  can  most  of  us  see  that  if  two  things  are  equal 
to  the  same  thing,  they  are  also  equal  to  one 
another.  But  not  all  of  us  can  see  that  the  square 
on  the  hypothenuse  of  a  right-angled  triangle  is 
equal  to  the  squares  on  the  other  two  sides  put 
together.  Yet  even  here  that  is  only  because  we 
fail  to  appreciate  the  force  of  the  reasoning  which 
proves  it.  There  are  people  who  cannot  follow 
Euclid's  demonstration  of  the  matter ;  but  there 
are  no  people  who  can  follow  it  and  who  deny 
its  validity.     The  thing  is  proved ;  it  is   science, 


96  KNOWLEDGE  AXD   OPIXlOy. 

or  ascertained  knowledge ;  everybody  capable  of 
understanding  it  admits  its  truth  ;  and  those  who 
are  incapahl'"  of  understanding  it  must  take  it  on 
trust  from  the  report  of  others.  So,  again,  to  put 
a  somewhat  higher  instance,  with  the  rotundity  of 
the  world.  We  all  believe  the  world  is  round. 
Some  of  us  can  verify  for  ourselves  the  reasoning 
by  which  it  is  shown  to  be  round ;  and  some  of  us 
cannot.  But,  whether  we  can  or  whether  we  can- 
not, we  are  alike  bound  to  accept  it.  The  belief 
is  science  ;  it  is  ascertained  knowledge,  not  matter 
of  opinion  ;  we  cannot  disbelieve  it  without  plung- 
ing ourselves  at  once  into  all  sorts  of  ridiculous 
mistakes.  Every  ship  that  sails  from  America  to 
Europe,  to  India,  to  New  Zealand,  to  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  proceeds  upon  the  assured  assump- 
tion that  the  world  is  round,  .and  would  never  get 
to  its  destination  if  it  proved  to  be  flat,  or  square, 
or  egg-shaped,  or  irregular.  Every  kind  of  large 
undertaking  upon  the  earth's  surface  takes  for 
granted  its  rotundity,  and  succeeds  only  because 
it  is  really  round.  If  you  accept  science,  you  will 
find  yourself  in  the  right  at  hast ;  if  you  do  not  ac- 
cept it,  you  will  most  assuredly  find  yourself  in  the 
wrong.  A  Chinaman  may  refuse  to  believe  that 
London  is  in  England,  and  confidently  assert  that 
it  is  really  in  France ;  and,  iis  long  as  he  remains 
in  China,  and  has  no  practical  dealings  with 
London,  his  error  will  not  greatly  matter.     But, 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  OPINION.  ft? 

as  soon  as  he  tries  to  put  his  belief  into  practice, 
and  sets  out  to  look  for  London  in  Normal  d y  or 
in  Provence,  he  will  very  quickly  discover  his 
blunder,  and  fnid  himself  pulled  up  short  at  last 
by  the  stern  logic  of  facts. 

And  this  leads  us  on  to  the  real  test  and  justifi- 
cation of  all  scientific  belief  —  its  constant  verifi- 
cation in  the  realities  of  life.  An  eclipse  of  the 
sun,  a  transit  of  Venus,  a  comet's  return,  is  pre- 
dicted confidently  for  such  and  such  a  day  and 
hour.  The  day  and  the  hour  arrive,  and  there, 
punctually  to  the  minute,  the  sun  is  eclipsed,  the 
transit  is  observed,  the  comet  returns.  It  is  just 
the  same  in  all  other  things.  What  is  the  justifi- 
cation of  our  science  of  physics  ?  Why,  the  fact 
that  in  accordance  with  its  laws  we  make  steam- 
engines  which  do  go,  we  construct  microscopes 
which  do  magnify,  we  produce  bridges  and  rail- 
roads and  ships  which  do  perform  the  work  we 
expect  of  them  I  What  is  the  justification  of  our 
electrical  science  ?  Why,  the  existence  of  tele- 
graphs, telephones,  electric  lights,  electro-plate 
spoons,  and  the  thousand  other  practical  outcomes 
of  our  knowledge  of  electiicity !  What  is  the 
justification  of  our  chemical  science?  Why,  the 
fact  that  we  can  make  dynamite  which  will  blast 
the  most  solid  rocks,  chloroform  wliich  will  still 
the  most  poignant  pain,  gas  which  will  lighten  the 
darkest    night,    acids    which    will    dissolve    the 


98  KNOWLEDGE  AND  OPINION. 

toughest  metal  I  The  wliole  world  around  us 
exists  in  virtue  of  the  helief  in  science  —  tliat  is 
to  say,  in  ascertained  fact.  If  we  were  all  to 
refuse  belief  in  the  laws  of  physics,  we  should 
walk  over  precipices  and  get  dashed  to  pieces  on 
the  ground  beneath  ;  if  we  were  all  to  refuse 
belief  in  the  laws  of  chemistry  and  electricity,  we 
might  go  back  to  tallow  candles  and  weekly  posts. 
Why,  we  should  not  be  able  to  have  even  these ; 
for  to  light  a  candle  with  a  match  implies  belief 
in  ever  so  many  scientilic  truths  —  that  matches 
ignite  when  struck ;  that  wicks  can  be  set  on  fire 
by  lighted  m  itches;  that  candles  will  burn  slowly 
and  give  out  sensible  light;  and  so  forth  ad 
infinitum. 

How  is  it,  then,  that  scientific  men  seem  always 
to  be  at  loggerheads  with  one  another  about  the 
principles  of  their  own  sciences?  The  answer  is, 
because  their  chief  interest  at  any  moment  is  con- 
centrated upon  what  may  be  called  the  growing- 
point  of  their  subject  —  the  small  part  that  is  just 
passing  from  the  stage  of  mere  ojjinion  or  suspi- 
cion into  the  stage  of  ascertained  fact.  In  astron- 
omy there  is  a  vast  body  of  certain  and  fixed 
truths  about  the  sun,  the  planets,  the  comets,  the 
meteors,  the  fixed  stars,  the  great  cloudy,  hazy 
masses  which  we  call  the  nebulae.  These  truths 
nobody  doubts;  and  astronomers,  therefore,  are 
not  greatly  engaged  in  discussing  them.     They 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  OPINION. 


are  known,  catalogued,  fmislied,  and  done  for. 
That  the  earth  revolves  round  the  sun  in  a  cer- 
tain known  number  of  days,  hours,  minutes,  and 
seconds ;  that  the  moon  revolves  in  an  equally 
known  period  round  the  earth  ;  that  Jupiter  and 
Saturn  have  respectively  so  many  satellites  or 
attendant  moons;  that  Neptune  exercises  a  cer- 
tain measurable  influence  on  the  orbits  of  the 
other  planets,  —  these  are  facts  now  definitely  set- 
tled once  and  for  ever.  But  what  is  the  exact 
constitution  of  the  sun's  body,  what  is  the  precise 
nature  of  comet's  tails,  how  the  meteors  are  re- 
lated to  the  planetary  system,  and  so  forth,  — 
these  are  questions  still  engaging  the  attention  of 
astronomers,  and  on  which  different  autliorities 
are  as  yet  liable  to  express  different  opinions. 
Similarly  with  other  sciences.  That  bats,  in  spite 
of  their  wings,  display  immense  similarity  of 
structure  to  hedgehogs  and  shrewmice ;  that  bam- 
boos are  only  very  large  and  woody  grasses ;  that 
the  brain  in  man  is  the  organ  of  mind ;  that  the 
use  of  the  heart  is  to  set  the  blood  in  circulation, 
—  these  are  facts  universally  admitted.  But  what 
is  the  wild  plant  from  which  we  derive  our  cultiva- 
ted wheat,  whether  all  animals  are  descended  from 
a  common  ancestor,  what  is  the  particular  func- 
tion of  each  part  of  the  brain,  how  the  blood  acts 
in  building  up  the  various  nerves  and  muscles, — 
these  are  questions  on  which  men  of  science  have 


100  KNOWLEDGE  AND  OPINION. 

not  yet  arrived  at  any  definite  and  unanimous 
agreement.  The  fact  that  any  question  is  still  un- 
decided makes  us  hear  a  great  deal  more  about  it 
than  about  the  fifty  thousand  points  that  are  finally 
fixed.  But  that  is  no  reason  for  charging  men  of 
science  with  inconsistency  and  dogmatism  ;  it  is 
merely  a  reason  for  waiting  to  accept  either  opin- 
ion until  it  has  stood  the  test  of  time. 


IX. 

THE  WINTER  REST. 

Once  more  the  wild  life  of  the  North  has  siinK 
to  sleep  in  field  and  woodland  for  its  long  annnal 
siesta;  for  what  night  is  to  man  and  other  ani- 
mals, viewed  individually,  that  is  winter  to  uni- 
versal nature  in  its  collective  aspect.  It  is  the 
period  of  rest,  of  repose,  of  calm,  of  dormancy. 
Though  we  notice  this  great  annual  sleep  of  the 
world  most  of  all  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  it  ex- 
tends almost  equally,  when  we  come  to  look  a 
little  closer,  to  the  vast  mass  of  animal  life  as 
well.  To  be  sure,  the  larger  animals,  which  alone 
most  of  us  ever  observe  with  any  minute  attention, 
such  as  horses,  donkeys,  sheep,  and  cattle,  remain 
quite  as  wide  awake  during  the  winter  months  as 
in  the  balmiest  height  of  summer ;  but  it  is  far 
otherwise  with  the  immensely  larger  number  of 
our  native  small  beasts,  reptiles,  amphibians,  and 
insects.  All  of  them  take  their  winter  nap  with 
great  regularity.  The  dormouse  retires  to  his 
hidden  lair  at  touch  of  the  first  frost,  and 
there  sleeps  away  quietly  the  whole  chilly  season. 
The  squirrel  goes  into  winter  quarters  in  his  com- 

101 


102  THE  WINTER  TtEST. 

fortable  nest,  and  wakes  np  only  at  lonj»  intervals, 
on  exceptionally  sunny  days,  to  visit  the  hoard  of 
nuts  and  acorns  which  he  has  laid  by  in  a  con- 
venient hollow  at  some  little  distance  from  his 
own  deep-dug  home.  The  mole  takes  refuge  in 
Ids  fortified  castle,  with  its  regular  defjuces  of 
tunnel  and  gallery,  where  this  otherwise  voracious 
aninud  spends  in  sleep  two  or  three  months  of 
almost  complete  fast,  while,  at  ordinary  times,  a 
few  hours  without  food  would  be  quite  sufiicient 
to  starve  him  utterly.  Tiie  hedgehog  dozes  away 
the  entire  winter  in  a  deep  and  warm  bedchand>er 
carefully  lined  with  leaves  and  moss.  The  more 
bulky  badger  hibernates  in  a  rather  less  complete 
fashion,  snoozing  for  a  fortnight  or  so  during  the 
heaviest  frosts,  and  then  taking  an  occasional  noc- 
turnal stroll,  on  the  lookout  for  stray  birds  or 
rabbits,  whenever  a  short  spell  of  open  weather 
permits  such  little  intermediate  excursions.  The 
harvest-mouse,  again,  has  no  fixed  principle  in 
the  matter  of  a  long  winter  siesta;  if  he  happens 
to  find  himself  in  comfortable  quarters  in  a  warm 
barn,  he  repays  the  hospitable  farmer  evil  for  good 
by  keeping  awake  through  the  whole  season,  and 
devouring  the  corn  with  active  assiduity ;  but,  if 
he  discovers  himself  stranded  by  chance  in  the 
frozen  fields,  he  retreats  to  his  little  burrow  for 
protection  from  the  weather,  and  there  indulges  iu 
a  long  and  sound  uap  till  spring  is  back  agaiu. 


THE  WINTER  REST.  103 

The  creatures  wliich  subsist  exclusively  or 
iiiiiinly  upon  suiall  gnats  and  other  flying  insects 
are  of  course  those  upon  which  the  winter  rest 
tells  most  unfavorably.  The  swallows  and  mar- 
tins indeed,  whose  beautiful,  curved  flight,  open- 
mouthed,  over  the  ponds  and  fields  where  such 
insects  abound  is  one  of  the  most  charming  sights 
of  summer,  evade  the  difliculty  by  retiring  to  some 
of  the  now  fiishionable  winter  stations  in  Georgia 
and  the  Gulf,  on  the  Riviera  or  in  Andalusia,  and 
Algeria,  where  they  may  hawk  to  their  hearts* 
content  itfter  flies  and  mosquitoes  the  whole  win- 
ter through.  But  the  less  fortunate  bats  have 
never  learned,  or  inherited  from  their  ancestoi-s, 
this  convenient  device  of  migration  ;  and  they  are 
consequently  compelled  to  hide  in  the  roofs  of 
houses,  the  steeples  of  churches,  and  the  crevices 
of  rocks,  as  soon  as  the  midges  have  disappeared 
for  the  season,  and  there  to  sleep  away  the  foo<l- 
less  period  in  a  state  of  complete  torpidity.  Lack 
of  food,  in  short,  is  everywhere  the  great  cause  of 
the  winter  torpor.  For  example,  hibernation  is 
comjjaratively  very  rare  among  birds,  but  the  owl 
may  almost  be  said  to  hibernate,  for  during  the  chil- 
liest months,  when  shrews,  field-mice,  water-rats, 
and  voles  —  its  favorite  prey  —  are  all  laid  up  in 
their  various  winter  beds,  it  often  goes  for  weeks 
together  without  [)ro vender,  and  seems  then  to 
doze  away  the  time  in  a  practically  dormant  and 


L^' 


/ 


104  THE   WINTER  REST. 

drowsy  condition.  As  to  the  reptiles,  tlie  common 
tortoises,  sold  about  the  streets  of  London  on 
hand-bariows,  and  imported  cliiefly  from  Greece 
or  the  Levant,  bury  themselves  deep  in  the  ground 
as  autumn  approaches,  and  only  reappear  in  spring 
when  the  juicy  plants  on  wliich  they  feed  are 
once  more  pushing  up  their  tender  seedlings.  Of 
course  the  idea  that  they  eat  slugs  and  cock- 
roaches, so  sedulously  encouuiged  by  their  itiner- 
ant venders,  is  but  a  playful  myth;  for  in  reality 
the  tortoise  is  as  confirmed  a  vegetarian  as  Pro- 
fessor Newman  himself  in  perron.  The  common 
newt  also  remains  torpid  in  winter  at  tne  bottom 
of  ponds  and  ditches,  as  the  lizi.rd,  the  adder,  the 
snake,  and  the  blindworm  likewise  do  in  their 
sandy  burrows. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  a  large  part  of  the 
animal  life  of  cold  countries  in  general  remains  en- 
tirely suspended  for  a  considerable  period  of  the 
year,  all  the  creatures  belonging  to  the  above 
species  and  to  many  others  which  we  have  not 
enumerated  being  all  at  once  sound  asleep  for 
weeks  together.  The  teeming  woods  and  heaths 
and  uplands,  which  in  summer  abound  everywhere 
with  the  manifold  signs  and  sounds  of  life,  are 
then  silent,  motionless,  and  abandoned.  But  still 
more  curious  is  the  fact  that  many  kinds  of  insects 
have  their  whole  specific  life  interrupted,  as  it 
were,  by  the  advent  of  winter,  the   entire   race 


THE   WINTER  REST.  105 

dying  down  in  the  last  days  of  autumn,  and  being 
represented  until  the  next  spring,  not  by  living 
members,  but  by  eggs  alone.  There  is  something 
very  singular,  and  we  might  almost  Stiy  marvel- 
lous, in  this  idea  of  a  whole  race  lying  dormant, 
so  to  speak,  in  the  egg  condition  for  months  to- 
gether, while  not  a  single  representative  of  the 
race  survives  personally  to  carry  on  its  conscious 
life  and  traditions  through  the  intervening  period. 
In  the  spring  the  new  generation  is  hatched  out 
from  the  egg^  without  ever  having  seen  a  solitary 
individual  of  the  earlier  broods;  so  that  each 
year's  crop  lives  in  entire  ignorance  of  its  prede- 
cessors and  successors,  having  come,  as  if  by  mir- 
acle, it  knows  not  whence,  and  leaving  its  eggs 
carefully  hidden  after  it,  it  knows  not  why  or 
wherefore.  In  many  insects,  however,  a  few  in- 
dividuals manage  to  drag  on  their  lives  by  hil)cr- 
nation  from  one  season  to  another,  and  thus  keep 
up  uninterrupted  the  succession  of  the  race.  This 
is  the  case  with  lady-birds,  some  of  which  always 
live  through  the  winter ;  as  also  with  wasps,  each 
nest  of  which  is  produced  hy  a  single  female  who  / 
lias  passed  the  colder  months  in  a  state  of  torpor, 
concealed  in  moss  or  some  other  secure  retreat. 
Humble-bees  similarly  derive  their  origin  from  a 
hibernating  female,  known  as  the  foundress,  who 
lias  in  like  manner  slept  through  the  winter  in  a 
hollow  tree.     With  certain  other  insects  it  is  the 


106  THE   WINTER  REST. 

larvae  in  their  cocoons  that  slumber  peacefully 
through  the  inclement  season,  emerging  in  the 
full-winged  state  as  soon  as  the  warm  weather  has 
fairly  set  in  again.  As  for  snails  and  other  mol- 
lusks,  they  close  the  mouths  of  their  shells  with  a 
slimy  wall  or  partition,  creep  into  crannies  of  rock 
or  holes  in  walls,  and  spend  a  drowsy  Christmas 
after  their  own  fashion  in  uninterrupted  somno- 

i  lence.  Altogether  it  would  probably  be  not  far 
from  the  truth  if  we  were  to  estimate  that  from 
November  to  March  nine-tenths  of  the  sjjecies  of 
animals,  great  and  small,  indigenous  to  New  Eng- 

-<(  land  or  to  the  British  Islands  are  all  coujfortably 
asleep  together,  either  in  the  adult  form,  the  egg^ 
or  the  chrysalis.     In  every  case,  when  animals  are    ) 
hibernating,   the    action  of   the   heart  and  lungs  \ 
almost   ceases,   and    the    small    amount   of   vital  ) 
activity   that  still   remains  is  carried   on    at   the  \ 
ex})ense  of  the  stored-up  material  already  laid  by  / 
in  the  creature's  own  body.     Hence  they  usually   ] 
go  to  sleep  extremely  fat,  and  wake  up  again  the  / 
succeeding    year    lean,   skinny,   and   voraciously  \ 
hungry. 

Plants  go  through  stages  exactly  analogous  in 
all  these  respects  to  those  undergone  by  animals. 
Certain  annuals,  the  equivalents  of  the  plant-lice 
and  other  insects  which  survive  through  the  win- 
ter in  the  egg  form  alone,  sow  their  seeds  in  early 
autumn,  and  die  out  entirely  themselves  during 


THE   WINTER  REST.  107 

the  December  snows.  Tliis  is  especially  tlie  case 
in  very  cold  countries,  and  is  true  even  of  Caniida, 
of  the  north  of  Scotland,  and  of  the  Yorkshire 
moors.  In  such  cases  the  life  of  the  species  is 
altogether  interrupted  for  some  months  at  a  time, 
during  which  period  the  entire  race  has  nothing 
to  vouch  for  it  save  a  number  of  dried  and  scat- 
tered seeds.  As  a  living  kind  it  has  ceased  for 
the  moment  to  exist  at  all,  except  potentially. 
But  in  England  and  in  Northern  America  most 
wild  annuals  shed  their  seeds  in  summer  or  early 
autumn  ;  and  the  seedlings  immediately  spring  up 
with  the  first  rains,  and  struggle  through  the  win- 
ter as  best  they  may  with  great  persistence.  Of 
course  the  frost  cuts  oft'  a  great  many ;  but  a  great 
many  more  still  survive,  and  these  latter  amply 
suffice  to  carry  on  the  life  of  the  various  herbs 
into  the  next  season.  Perennials,  on  the  other 
hand,  may  be  said  for  the  most  part  to  hibernate 
and  remain  torpid  just  as  truly  as  the  dormouse 
and  the  garden  snail.  Nay,  they  even  fatten 
themselves,  as  it  were,  against  the  cold  season. 
During  the  whole  summer,  the  leaves,  which  are 
the  true  mouths  and  stomachs  of  the  plant,  are 
busy  every  day  and  all  clay  long  laying  up  starches 
and  other  valuable  food-stuffs,  under  the  benign 
influence  of  the  bountiful  sunshine.  Hut,  as 
autumn  approaches,  the  plants  withdraw  the  use- 
ful material  from  the  leaves,  now  about  to  fall, 


108  THE    WINTER  REST. 

and  store  it  up  in  the  permanent  tissues,  either 
in  bulbs,  roots,  tu})ers,  stem,  or  green  bark  in  the 
fresh  saplings.  It  is  this  withdrawal  from  the 
foliage  of  the  living  green  matter,  together  with 
the  important  protoplasm  and  other  vital  principles, 
that  causes  the  beautiful  tints  of  autumn.  The 
ordinary  pigment  being  drawn  off,  other  coloring 
matters,  till  then  unseen,  or  produced  by  chemical 
changes  connected  with  the  withdrawal,  come  at 
once  into  full  prominence.  If  the  vital  principles 
remained  in  the  leaves  through  the  winter,  they 
would  be  killed  by  the  cold ;  but  by  being  stored 
up  in  bulbs,  or  roots,  or  stems,  they  pass  safely 
through  the  frosty  ordeal.  In  the  case  of  some 
few  plants,  however,  such  as  laurel,  holly,  pines, 
and  yew-trees,  which  are  evergreen,  even  in  our 
own  climate,  the  leaves  are  very  tough  and  leath- 
ery, and  are  usually  extremely  glossy,  the  gloss 
being  due  to  a  layer  of  transparent,  empty  cells, 
which,  as  it  were,  glaze  the  leaf,  and  protect  it 
from  cold  as  glass  protects  a  hothouse.  Such 
plants  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  vegetable 
equivalents  of  robins,  sparrows,  hares,  and  foxes, 
which  manage  to  keep  alive  and  fairly  wakeful  the 
whole  year  round.  On  the  other  hand,  the  nu- 
merous class  of  bulbous  plants,  of  which  only  the 
buried  bulbs  or  tubers  remain  in  winter,  deeply 
hidden  underground,  may  be  compared  exactly 
with  the  tortoise,  the  mole,  the  adder,  and   the 


THE   WINTER  REST.  109 

hedgehog,  which  similarly  retire  for  the  sake  of 
warmth  far  beneath  the  soil. 

This  practice  of  the  winter  sleep  of  plants  and  -^/ 
animals,  however,  though  now  so  familiar  to  all  of 
us  in  northern  climates,  is,  geologically  speaking,  ^^ — 
a  comparatively  modern  and  recent  habit.  Du- 
ring by  far  the  greater  part  of  this  planet's  exis- ; 
tence  winter  has  been  absolutely  unknown  over 
its  whole  surface,  from  the  poles  to  the  equator ; 
and  tropical  vegetation,  with  a  tropical  fauna,' 
reigned  supreme  even  within  the  Arctic  Circle.  / 
It  was  only  at  the  very  close  of  what  geologists 
I  call  the  Tertiary  Period  that  any  indications  of 
I)  chilling  at  the  extreme  north  and  south  ends  of 
this  oblate  spheroid  of  ours  began  to  display  them- 
i  selves,  and  winter  and  summer  first  took  their 
!  present  form.  Up  to  that  epoch,  therefore,  all 
"the  trees  on  the  earth  had  been  evergreens,  as 
they  still  are  within  the  tropics,  mostly  of  the 
large-leaved  type  represented  now  in  our  own 
shrubberies  by  the  laurels,  the  laurustines,  and  the 
Japanese  aucubas.  But  with  the  setting  in  of 
that  long  cold  spell,  known  as  the  Glacial  Epoch 
or  the  Great  Ice  Age,  all  this  was  rapidly  reversed. 
Plants  and  animals  alike,  finding  themselves  face 
to  face  with  hitherto  unknown  chilly  conditions, 
had  either  to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  new 
circumstances  or  to  die  out  altogether.  Many 
kinds   among   them,  it    seems,    were    unable    to 


110  THE   WINTER  REST. 

modify  their  structure  or  habits  so  far  as  to  meet 
the  changed  state  of  things ;  and  therefore  not  a 
few  giants  of  the  previous  age,  such  as  the  mam- 
moth, the  mastodon,  the  cave-bear,  and  the  sabre- 
toothed  lion,  died  out  utterly,  leaving  no  descen- 
dants. But  a  consider.ible  number  showed  suffi- 
cient plasticity  of  nature  to  survive  into  the  newer 
and  colder  era.  It  was  as  though  one  siiould 
gradually  pull  down  the  walls  of  a  hothouse,  and 
extinguish  the  fires,  leaving  the  few  stronger  kinds 
among  its  inmates  to  struggle  on  as  best  they 
might  in  the  cold,  while  the  remainder  perished 
miserablv.  The  trees  and  shrubs  for  the  most 
part  accepted  the  new  rStjime  by  becoming  decid- 
uous, shedding  their  leaves  annually  at  the 
approach  of  winter ;  though  a  few  creepers  and 
bushes,  like  ivy,  holly,  and  box,  secured  them- 
selves rather  from  the  January  frosts  by  the  adop- 
tion of  smooth  and  glossy  foliage.  Then  for  the 
first  time  did  the  woods  begin  to  display  their 
autumn  glories  of  gold  and  crimson,  and  the 
ground  to  be  thickly  covered  in  November  weather 
by  the  beautiful  coating  of  russet-brown  leaves. 
As  for  the  animals,  they  provided  variously  for 
the  altered  circumstances.  The  birds,  to  whom 
seas,  straits,  and  rivers  are  no  obstacles,  saved 
tliemselves  in  great  part  by  migrating  southward 
during  the  worst  rigors  of  winter  ;  while  the  four- 
footed  beasts,  unable  tlius  to  annihilate  geograph- 


THE  WINTER  REST.  Ill 

ical  conditions,  had  to  content  themselves  with 
hurrowing  in  the  earth,  or  making  themselves 
warm  nests  of  moss  and  liay,  where  they  now  lie 
torj)id  during  the  foodless  season.  As  for  the 
insects,  they  were  fain  to  leave  their  eggs  only  to 
represent  them  in  the  December  snows,  or  else  to 
struggle  on  somehow  in  the  chrysalis,  or  even  in 
the  winged  condition,  through  the  hard  weather. 
Thus  it  was,  modern  science  tells  us,  that  the 
great  winter  sleep  of  universal  nature  in  extreme 
northern  or  southern  climates  first  began  to  come 
into  existence. 


X. 

MOUNTAINS. 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  much  the  taste  and 
liking  for  mountain  scenery  and  mountain-climb- 
ing are  a  mere  growth  of  the  last  hundred  years 
or  less,  utterly  unknown  not  only  to  our  practical 
medieval  ancestors,  but  even  to  our  recent  do- 
mestic predecessors  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  early  settlers  in  America  never  descanted  on 
the  beauty  of  the  scenery.  To  the  contemporaries 
of  Johnson,  Goldsmith,  and  Burke,  mountains 
were  seldom  envisaged  as  beautiful,  picturesque, 
attractive,  or  inviting ;  they  were  always  spoken 
of  only  as  rugged,  frowning,  terrible,  and  forbid- 
ding. It  was  the  toils  and  dangers  of  mountain 
travelling,  not  its  pleasures  and  delights,  that  the 
eighteenth  century  most  vividly  realized.  When 
sturdy  old  Sam  Johnson  himself  consented  for  a 
while  to  desert  his  beloved  Fleet  Street  and  go  on 
an  exploring  expedition  among  the  unknown 
wilds  of  the  Western  Hebrides,  his  diary  is  full 
of  the  fatigues  and  horrors  of  Scotch  locomotion, 
but  hardly  breathed  a  single  word  of  the  beauties 

112 


MOUNTAINS.  113 

and  surprises  of  Scotch  scenery.  Nay,  even  little 
liills  tliat  seem  to  us  nowadays  perfectly  contemp- 
tible in  their  insignificance,  roused  tlie  profound- 
est  alarm  and  dismay  iii  the  susceptible  bosoms  of 
our  great-grandfathers.  When  the  poet  Cowper, 
accustomed  only  to  the  gentle  and  monotonous 
undulations  of  the  eastern  counties,  first  made  a 
pleasure  journey  through  the  bills  of  Surrey,  he 
noted  with  positive  terror  and  bodily  fear  the 
vast  heights  of  the  North  Downs  and  the  Forest 
Kidge,  though  he  takes  care  also  to  express  his 
profound  admiration  of  that  brave  woman,  Mrs. 
Unwin,  who  could  mount  them  all  (in  a  comfort- 
able carriage  on  the  King's  liigh-road)  absolutely 
undaunted.  To  us,  at  the  present  day,  the  little 
elevations  of  Leith  Hill  and  Crowborough  Beacon, 
whicii  seemed  to  Cowper  positively  appalling  in 
their  height  and  sublimity,  appear  nothing  more 
than  pleasant  goals  for  a  short  picnicking  excursion 
for  the  afternoon  pedestrian  fresh  out  from  Lon- 
don. 

It  was  just  the  same  with  other  people  far  less 
nervous  and  timid  than  the  poet  of  Olney ;  all 
his  contemporaries  shared  with  him  this  singular 
and  to  us  incomprehensible  dread  and  equally  sin- 
gular and  incomprehensible  admiration  of  any 
height  greater  than  that  of  a  good-sized  ordinary 
mole-hill.  Gilbert  Wliite,  a  true  lover  of  nature, 
if  ever  there  was  one,  speaks  most  na'ively  of  the 


114  MOUNTAINS. 

little  down  that  stands  behind  his  famous  parish 
of  Selborne  as  "a  vast  hill  of  chalk,  rising  three 
hundred  feet  above  the  village."  Another  nunor 
undulation  in  the  same  neighborhood  he  gravely 
describes  as  "a  noble  promontory,"  while  the 
prospect  from  its  summit  is  bounded,  he  says,  in 
all  seriousness,  "by  the  vast  range  of  mountains 
called  the  Sussex  Downs."  We  should  hardly 
use  such  language  nowa(hi3's  of  the  Maritime 
Alps  or  the  Bernese  Oberland ;  we  should  think 
the  description  applied  fitly  only  to  the  very 
greatest  backbones  of  continents,  like  the  Hima- 
layas, the  Andes,  and  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
"Though  I  have  now  travelled  the  Sussex  Downs 
upwards  of  thirty  years,"  says  White,  on  another 
occasion,  "yet  I  still  investigate  that  chain  of  ma- 
jestic mountains  with  fresh  admiration  year  by 
year,"  He  could  not  have  spoken  with  more  en- 
thusiasm if  he  had  been  trying  to  describe  the 
Yosemite  Valley  or  the  snow-clad  summits  of  the 
frosty  Caucasus. 

When  the  eighteenth  century  got  amongst  any- 
thing worthy  to  be  considered  as  anywhere  near 
real  mountains,  its  helplessness  and  fear  of  the 
perils  before  it  became  almost  childish.  We 
hardly  nowadays  apply  the  name  of  mountain  at 
all  to  Snowdon  or  Cader  Idris :  we  speak  of  them 
patronizingly  in  our  modern  fashion  as  "the  Welsh 
hills,"  and  walk  up  them  casually  before  breakfast 


MOUNTAiyS.  115 

for  the  sake  of  the  sunrise.  But  to  the  wayfarers 
in  the  reigii  of  good  Queen  Anne  and  of  the 
early  Georges,  they  were  veritahle  bugbears,  huge 
rearing  masses  of  solid  rock,  almost  impassable  on 
foot  or  horseback,  and  dreaded  infinitely  more  by 
passengers  to  Ireland  via  Holyhead  than  the  most 
dillicult  and  dangerous  of  the  Alpine  passes  are 
dreaded  by  the  adventurous  ladies  of  our  own 
time.  Thousands  of  tourists  now  enjoy  themselves 
annually  on  the  green  slopes  of  Penmaenmawr,  a 
smiling  hill  dotted  over  with  villas  and  pleasant 
lodging-houses  for  the  temporary  reception  of 
the  jaded  townsman  on  his  summer  holiday.  But 
a  hundred  years  ago  Penmaenmawr  was  *'a  vast, 
gloomy  rock,"  "a  stupendous  obstruction  thrown 
in  the  way  of  the  adventurous  traveller,"  "a  truly 
terrific  and  dangerous  defile,  which  frights  the 
passer-by  with  its  almost  perpendicular  front  c)f 
solid  limestone."  The  little  wayside  in  \s  at  the 
two  extremities  of  the  much-dreaded  road  which 
ran  across  the  "terrific"  hill  from  Conway  to 
Bangor  bore  two  inscriptions  well  fitted  to  meet 
the  frame  of  mind  of  the  trembling  ladies  and 
gentlemen  who  here  exchanged  their  roomy  trav- 
elling-carriages for  hired  saddle-horses.  On  the 
one  nearest  Chester  the  signboard  displayed  the 
not  very  encouraging  couplet :  — 

Before  you  venture  hence  to  pass 
Take  a  good  refresUing  glass; 


116  MOUNTAINS. 

while  its  sister  board  at  the  other  end  of  the 
"  truly  forinidable  clifif "  bore  the  congratulatory 
remark :  — 

Now  you're  over,  take  another 
Your  drooping  spirits  to  recover  I 

wljich,  if  it  is  not  very  good  rhyme,  is,  at  least, 
good  evidence  of  the  fear  felt  by  our  easy-going 
ancestors  for  so  slight  a  hill  as  Penmaenmawr, 
only  fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea-level,  and 
easily  walked  up  by  any  ordinary  modern  pedes- 
trian in  any  direction. 

The  same  childish  dread  of  mountains  or  big 
hills  crops  up  everywhere  in  the  books  and  letters 
of  all  periods  up  to  the  very  beginning  of  the 
present  century.  Have  we,  then,  become  excep- 
tionally brave,  or  were  our  predecessors  all  re- 
markable cowards?  Probably  neither.  The  fact 
is  that  our  modern  familiarity  with  mountain- 
climbing,  or,  at  least,  with  hills  and  downs,  has 
resulted  partly  from  the  increased  ease  of  locomo- 
tion, and  partly  from  the  growing  sense  of  the 
absolute  necessity  for  physical  exercise  on  the 
part  of  the  dwellers  in  great  cities.  A  hundred 
years  ago  most  Englishmen  lived  and  died  in  the 
towns  or  villages  where  they  were  born  or  bred. 
They  seldom  went  away  from  home  at  all ;  or,  if 
they  travelled,  it  was  mostly  by  the  coach-road  to 
London,  through  the  very  flattest  and  easiest  parts 


MOUNTAINS.  117 

of  the  whole  country.  When  they  walked,  it  was 
in  parks  or  gardens,  or  in  the  field-paths  and 
riverside  meadows  that  surrounded  their  own 
quiet  native  borough.  Now,  Er'^  id,  though 
prettily  diversified,  is,  on  the  whole,  a  distinctly 
flat,  or,  rather,  little  elevated  country.  There  are 
hill  and  dale,  down  and  valley,  heath  and  moor- 
land, copse  and  common,  it  is  true,  to  an  extent 
not  often  to  be  found  combined  in  so  comparatively 
small  and  limited  an  area  in  any  other  country. 
But  in  the  greater  part  of  the  kingdom  there  are 
no  hills  of  any  considerable  height,  and  the  few 
exceptions,  as  in  the  case  of  Exmoor,  Dartmoor, 
the  Peak  of  Derbyshire,  the  Yorkshire  moors,  and 
the  Westmoreland  and  Cumberland  Lake  District, 
occur  in  what  were  then  remote  and  almost  un- 
inhabited parts  of  the  country,  far  removed  from 
the  busy  centres  of  urban  life  during  the  Tudor, 
Stuart,  and  Hanoverian  periods.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  large  towns  and  thickly  populated  dis- 
tricts of  England  lie,  for  the  most  part,  along  the 
river  valleys  or  in  the  great  central  upland  level.' 
Hence,  to  the  Englishman  of  a  hundred  years  ago, 
high  hills  or  mountains  were  very  unfamiliar  and 
almost  uncanny  objects.  He  knew  nothing  tibout 
them,  he  had  never  seen  them,  and  so,  of  course, 
had  not  contracted  a  personal  taste  for  them  as 
elements  in  scenery ;  and  when  he  came  across 
them,  he  was  mostly  concerned  with  the  momen- 


118  MOUNTAINS. 

tous  question  how  lie  was  ever  to  get  over  safely 
to  the  other  side,  not  with  the  consideration  of 
the  view  from  the  summit.  Kichmond  Hill  and 
Cooper's  Hill,  Greenwich  and  Hampstead,  tlie 
little  heights  that  overhang  the  river,  he  could 
indeed  understand  and  appreciate ;  but  Snowdon 
and  Helvellyn,  Cader  Idris  and  Snaefell,  the 
Grampians  and  the  Cheviots,  were  to  him  but 
huge  obstacles  thrown  in  his  path  by  inconsiderate 
Nature  out  of  pure  vexatiousness.  As  to  the 
Alps  and  the  Apennines,  which  he  sometimes  en- 
countered on  his  grand  tour,  he  regarded  them 
merely  as  masses  of  inhospitable  snow  stuck  of 
malice  pref)ense  across  the  direct  highway  to 
Rome  and  Naples  on  purpose  to  obstruct  his  way 
south  in  his  own  respectable  badly  hung  travel- 
ling-carriage. 

Railways  have  probably  had  more  to  do  than 
anything  else  witli  the  singular  alteration  which 
has  taken  place  in  the  public  mind  with  regard  to 
mountain  scenery  and  mountain-climbing.  They 
have  made  what  used  to  be  the  bugbear  of  the 
rich  into  the  pleasure  and  pastime  of  all  classes. 
More  English  peojjle  probably  visit  Switzerland 
in  a  si!igle  year  at  the  present  time  than  visited 
the  Welsh  hills  or  the  Lake  District  in  any  con- 
secutive ten  years  of  the  last  century.  From  our 
childhood  upward  we  are  made  familiar  witli  hills 
and  with  mountain-climbing;  and  we  are  gradually 


MOUNTAINS.  119 

broken  in  to  it  by  successive  experiences,  beginning 
perhaps  with  the  half-holiday  picnicking  phices 
among  the  downs  of  Surrey  or  the  big  beeches  of 
Epping  Forest,  and  going  on  progressively  through 
the  ascending  scale  of  VV^elsh,  Scotcli,  and  Irish 
mountains,  till  at  last  we  reach  the  dignity  of  the 
Alps,  and  plant  our  alpenstock  in  proud  content- 
ment upon  the  virgin  snows  of  the  Jungfrau  or 
tlie  Matterhorn.  But  what  is  still  more  remark- 
able is  the  fact  that  a  genuine  and  deep-seated  love 
for  hilly  scenery  has  grown  up  amongst  all  our 
people  side  by  side  with  this  rapid  development  of 
the  mountaineering  instinct.  We  are  not  all 
good  pedestrians,  but  we  all  admire  and  love 
mountain  country.  To  the  eighteenth  century 
mountains  were  simply  objects  of  terror  and  aver- 
sion. One  may  read  almost  all  through  the  de- 
scriptions of  travellers  in  wild  regions  up  to  the 
beginning  of  our  own  era,  and  hardly  find  a  single 
epithet  bestowed  upon  mountains  save  "horrid," 
"rugged,"  "terrific,"  "gigantic,"  "enormous," 
"gloomy,"  "stupendous,"  and  "inhospitable." 
We  can  scarcely  ever  light  upon  a  single  word 
implying  that  the  mountain  was  looked  upon 
as  beautiful,  or  as  anything  else,  in  fact,  except  a 
mere  barrier  in  the  way  of  progress.  Doctor 
Johnson  thought  the  finest  view  in  Scotland  was 
far  inferior  to  the  streets  of  London. 

But  the  iron  road,  which  has  tunnelled  its  way 


120  MOUNTAINS. 

through  the  St.  Gothard  and  the  Mont  Cenis, 
which  lias  surmounted  tlie  Rocky  Mountains  and 
the  Sierra  Nevada,  wliich  has  annihilated  tlie 
Pyrenees,  and  begins  now  to  pierce  even  the  un- 
broken ridge  of  the  .-  ^c, — the  iron  road  has 
laid  open  to  us  everywu^re  the  mountain  valleys, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  has  made  us  forget  the 
obstacles  to  locomotion  once  flung  so  widely  by 
the  hand  of  Nature  across  the  face  of  the  great 
continents.  Everybody  now  has  seen,  if  not  moun- 
tains, at  least  considerable  hills  and  eminences, 
and  has  learnt  to  look  upon  them  no  longer  as 
merely  rough  and  forbidding,  but  as  reservoirs  of 
fresh  air  for  poisoned  lungs,  and  pure  stretches 
of  untrodden  turf  for  feet  wearied  with  the  hard 
and  cramping  pavement  of  cities.  Scotland  has 
become  the  playground  of  Britain,  while  Switzer- 
land has  developed  into  the  playground  of  Europe. 
Instead  of  the  very  name  ''mountain"  conjuring 
up  before  our  minds  notliing  but  pictures  of  dan- 
ger and  discomfort,  it  now  conjures  up  before  us 
endless  ideas  of  healthy  enjoyment  —  of  delightful 
scrambles  among  rock  and  heather,  of  glorious 
and  expansive  views  over  lake  and  lowland,  of 
breezy  picnics  among  solitary  summitb,  of  rare 
flowers  and  beautiful  ferns  that  cling  lovingly  to 
the  weathered  crannies  of  their  native  rocks.  The 
eighteenth  century  did  not  greatly  love  walking; 
it  preferred  to  drive  in  its  own  chariot,  or  to  stick 


MOUNTAINS.  121 

at  home  by  its  own  fireside.  Our  healthier  age 
demands  by  choice  a  more  o^  jn-air  existence,  —  at 
least  when  possible,  —  and  makes  light  of  labors 
wliich  to  the  lazy  limbs  of  our  inactive  ancestors 
would  have  seemed  but  little  if  at  all  preferable 
to  three  weeks  on  the  prison  treadmill.  The  love 
for  hill-climbing  is  one  of  the  best  features  of  our 
own  time,  and  it  is  a  love  that  is  gradually  spread- 
ing among  all  classes  of  our  population.  And  since 
the  bell  of  the  bicycle  has  been  heard  in  the  land, 
the  taste  for  hilly  scenery  has  gone  down  to  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  our  young  men  to  whom 
even  the  light  fares  of  the  cheap  excursion-trains 
were  before  fixed  at  practically  prohibitive  prices. 
Anything  that  so  brings  large  bodies  of  our  popu- 
lation into  closer  intercourse  with  all  that  is  grand- 
est and  loveliest  in  nature  is  in  itself  an  immense 
boon  to  the  whole  of  humanity;  and  in  nothing 
has  the  increased  ease  of  locomotion  been  more 
productive  of  good  than  in  thus  enabling  us  all 
individually  to  see  in  mountains,  no  longer  a  mere 
barrier  to  be  surmounted,  but  a  source  of  health 
and  strength  and  aesthetic  pleasure,  a  thing  of 
beauty  and  a  joy  forever. 


XI. 

HOME-LIFE. 

"  It  lias  often  been  pointed  out  by  English-speak- 
ing writers  that  there  is  no  word  more  specially 
distinctive  of  the  English  and  American  tempera- 
ment than  the  word  "•  home."  In  French,  as  we 
have  frequently  been  told,  there  is  no  such  word 
—  an  Englishman,  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
could  never  conceivably  get  on  without  it.  And 
in  the  main  we  do  not  doubt  that  this  peculiarly 
English  characteristic,  this  touching  love  of  home 
and  of  the  home-life,  this  beautiful  clinging  to  the 
Teutonic  ideal  of  the  family  hearth,  this  cherished 
memory  through  life  of  the  domestic  circle,  lias 
been  productive  of  much  lasting  good  and  real 
liappiness  to  the  British  peoples.  We  may  not 
perhaps  be  quite  so  vastly  superior  to  other  nations 
as  we  are  fond  in  our  innocent  self-esteem  of  tak- 
ing for  granted  silently, —  it  may  not  really  be  so 
'^  greatly  to  our  credit  "  (as  Mr.  Gilbert  says)  that 
we  still  remain  Englishmen  and  Americans, —  but 
whatever  good  pi)ints  do  actually  exist  in  the 
national  temperament  are  no  doubt  largely  trace- 
able to  the  extreme  strength  of  the  family  feeling 

122 


HOME-LIFE.  123 

throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Britain  and 
tlie  States.  No  other  nation,  probably,  except  the 
German,  has  anything  like  the  same  respect  and 
love  for  home  as  ours  have.  It  is  to  us  something 
sacred,  holy,  almost  invested  with  a  religious  sig- 
nificance ;  and  anything  that  strikes  at  the  sanctity 
of  home  is  to  most  Englishmen  an  utter  abomina- 
tion. That  this  should  be  so  is,  on  the  whole,  we 
do  not  hesiuite  to  believe,  a  great  good  to  our 
national  existence. 

Still,  no  thoughtful  observer  can  have  failed  to 
notice  of  late  years  a  growing  sense  of  the  narrow- 
ness of  home  in  a  great  many  of  our  bigger  over- 
grown cities.  Young  men  and  young  women  in 
particular  are  beginning  to  chafe  somewhat  at  the 
increasing  monotony  and  dulness  of  much  middle- 
class  home-life.  Not  indeed  that  home,  as  home, 
is  becoming  any  the  less  a  sacred  ideal  with  them, 
—  let  us  hope  that  that  peculiarl}-  deep  Teutonic 
feeling  in  its  best  forms  may  never  lose  its  strength 
among  us, —  but,  as  homes  in  our  great  cities  have 
grown  to  be  something  other  than  tliey  once  were, 
a  certain  recognition  of  a  social  want  outside  the 
home  has  developed  slowly  and  half  unconsciously 
in  the  nunds  of  many  among  our  young  people. 
Some  of  them  are  discontenteil  and  unliap])y,  they 
do  not  exactly  know  why ;  but  in  reality  because 
the  deeply  seated  social  feelings  of  humanity  find 
no  sufficient  outlet  for  themselves  beyond  the  small 


124  HOME-LIFE. 

and  now  ever-narrowing  range  of  the  family  circle. 
The  fact  is,  our  life  is  undergoing  a  rapid  trans- 
formation from  the  life  of  a  mainly  rural  and 
agricultural  world,  composed  almost  entirely  of 
villages  and  small  towns,  to  the  life  of  a  mainly 
urban  and  industrial  world,  composed  for  the 
most  part  of  great  bustling  manufacturing  cities, 
where  thousand  of  families,  unknown  to  one 
another,  live  huddled  together  into  a  small  space, 
with  few  interests  or  feelings  in  common,  and  with 
little  social  intercourse  with  one  another.  In 
short,  we  have  not  yet  adapted  our  habits  and 
manners  to  this  new  social  state  —  we  have  found 
no  way  of  combining  the  arrangements  of  a  great 
city  with  the  natural  and  easy  social  intercourse 
of  our  small  outlying  towns  and  villages.  Every- 
body knows  that  the  practical  isolation  of  many 
middle-class  families  in  London,  or  Boston,  or  Chi- 
cago is  far  greater  than  the  practical  isolation  of  a 
solitary  shepherd  on  a  Devonshire  sheep-walk,  or 
of  a  New  Hampshire  farmer  on  a  snow-clad  hill- 
side. Most  London  families  know  nothing  at  all 
of  their  next-door  neighbors,  and  many  of  them 
know  hardl}'  anybody  outside  their  own  household 
among  the  whole  four  million  inhabitants  of  that 
vast  nu)dern  human  ant-hill.  The  solitude  of  the 
crowd  is  even  more  conspicuous  and  more  sur- 
prising than  the  solitude  of  the  desert. 

How  has  this  curious  state  of  things  come  about, 


HOME-LIFE.  125 

and  liow  is  it  to  be  remedied?  Tlic  cause  at  least, 
if  not  the  cure,  is  easy  euougli  for  any  one  to 
perceive.  The  aboriginal  England,  the  merry 
England  of  other  days,  tlie  England  from  which 
our  Puritan  ancestors  emigrated,  the  actual  Eng- 
land of  the  unsophisticated  agricultural  counties, 
consisted  or  consists  of  small  settlements,  each 
clustered  round  its  ancient  manor-lfouse  and  ivy- 
clad  parish  church,  and  inhabited  by  families  all 
of  whom  were  born  and  will  die  upon  the  same 
spot.  In  such  a  state  of  society,  everybody,  of 
course,  knows  everybody.  There  are  few  set  par- 
ties or  clubs  or  meetings,  it  is  true  ;  but  there  is  a 
constant  natural  stream  of  social  intercourse  from 
morning  to  night,  from  year's  end  to  year's  end, 
from  birth  to  death.  As  every  man,  boy,  girl,  and 
woman  walk  down  the  little  village  street,  every- 
body they  meet  on  their  way  has  a  ready  smile 
and  a  nod  of  recognition  with  which  to  greet  them. 
Baker  Brown  and  Gardener  Gee  —  as  they  still 
pleasantly  call  one  another  in  more  than  one  old- 
fasliioned  country-town  that  we  know  of  —  stop 
continually  to  chat  with  Grocer  Smith  and  Fiddler 
Jenkins,  as  they  move  about  their  every-day  avo- 
cations. Neighbors  drop  in,  as  they  themselves 
naively  put  it,  "  quite  promiscuous  like  "  ;  and,  if 
they  stop  to  tea  or  supper,  no  further  prejjaration 
is  considered  necessary  for  their  entertainment 
than  an  extra  spoonful  "for  the  good  of  the  pot," 


126  HOME-LIFE. 

or  an  additional  piece  of  tlie  best  blue  clieese  on  the 
biggest  platter.  Over-civilized  dwellers  in  towns 
may  smile  as  they  please  at  these  simple  unpre- 
meditated rustic  hosi)italities  ;  but  the  countryman 
does  not  smile  ;  he  laughs  loudly  —  and  he  laughs 
on  the  right  side  of  the  mouth  into  the  bargain. 
Social  life  such  as  this  is  the  kind  of  life  to  which 
all  of  us  are  naturally  adapted.  High  or  low,  rich 
or  poor,  gentle  or  simple,  our  ancestors  have  all 
accommodated  themselves  to  it  for  many  genera- 
tions;  and  each  of  us  nowadays  is  born  with 
instincts  and  feelings  implanted  in  his  bosom  in 
full  harmony  with  such  an  extended  human  en- 
vironment. Man,  in  fact,  as  we  all  so  often  say, 
is  a  social  animal.  More  than  that  —  he  is  a  gre- 
garious animal.  He  loves  the  frequent  society  of 
his  kind.  Innate  within  him  are  deep-seated  in- 
stincts—  nay,  nerves  and  brain-elements — an- 
swering physically  to  the  ancestral  habit  of 
sociability.  If  those  instincts  are  not  gratified,  if 
those  special  nerve-fibres  are  not  duly  exercised, 
there  results  naturally  a  feeling  of  dissatisfaction 
and  disappointment.  Just  as  a  dog  is  born  with 
the  intense  need  for  man  as  his  master,  so  man  is 
born  with  the  intense  need  for  the  companionship  of 
his  fellows.  And  just  as  the  masterless  dog  wanders 
about  disconsolate  and  utterly  miserable,  so  man, 
deprived  of  natural  society,  feels  the  inmost  wants 
of  his  nature  in  so  far  thwarted  and  unsatisfied. 


'  I 


HOME-LIFE.  1 27 

Now,  in  our  domestic  life,  till  very  lately,  there 
was  ample  room  for  the  satisfaction  of  these  pro- 
found social  instincts.  But  the  rapid  growth  and 
development  of  our  great  cites  have  largely  upset 
the  primitive  sociability  of  our  lives.  Peoj)le  from 
all  parts  of  the  country  and  all  countries  of  the 
world  have  crowded  into  the  big  towns.  There 
tliey  have  come  together  (piite  accidentally,  in 
streetful  after  streetful  of  miscellaneous  humanitv, 
knowing  nothing  of  one  another,  often  with  few 
or  no  interests  in  common,  and  unable  to  mix 
freely  in  social  intercourse.  It  is  largely  this  hap- 
hazard crowding  together  of  people  from  every- 
where that  has  begotten  that  exclusiveness  and  that 
"stand-off"  attitude  which  many  foreigners  find 
so  characteristic  of  the  English  and  still  mtn-e  of 
the  American  nation.  Everybody  is  afraid  of 
knowing  his  neighbor,  for  fear  his  neighbor,  about 
whose  antecedents  he  is  absolutely  ignorant,  should 
not  turn  out  to  be  quite  the  sort  of  person  with 
whom  he  would  naturally  wish  to  associate. 
That  eminently  respectable  man  IJrown  is  anxious 
to  keep  Smith  at  a  distance,  for  fear  Smith  should 
prove  an  undesirable  acquaintance  ;  that  eminently 
respectable  man  Smith  looks  askance  when  lie 
meets  Brown  on  the  doorstep,  for  fear  BroNvn 
should  be  discovered,  upon  nearer  view,  to  be  no 
better  than  he  ought  to  be.  Then,  again,  it  is  so 
hard  for  the  people  who  would  really  wish  to  know 


128  HOME-LIFE. 

one  another  to  find  out  their  natural  fellows  in 
London  or  Liverpool,  Manchester  or  Glasgow, 
New  York  or  San  Francisco.  "Where  do  all  the 
other  people  live  whom  I  should  like  to  know  ?  " 
asks  a  despondent  man  of  letters  into  whose  soul 
the  iron  of  suburban  life  has  entered  deeply.  "  In 
the  other  suburbs.  Where  are  all  the  men  whose 
tastes  and  habits  are  similar  to  my  own  ?  In  the 
other  suburbs."  The  fact  is,  we  do  not  discover 
each  other  readily  in  these  vast  and  unwieldy 
heterogeneous  concourses  of  fortuitous  social 
atoms. 

The  natural  consequence  of  such  social  isolation 
in  the  big  towns  is  that  the  innumerable  warm 
human  hearts  of  a  great  chiss,  or  rather  of  many 
great  classes,  among  us  have  been  wholly  and  some- 
what un wholesomely  turned  inward  on  the  home 
alone.  Home,  which  ought  rightly  to  fdl  the 
larger  part  of  life,  but  a  part  only,  has  been  made 
improperly  to  do  duty  for  the  whole  gamut  of  our 
feelings  as  far  as  possible.  The  wealthier  classes 
indeed  have  always  been  able  to  secure  abundant 
social  intercourse.  liiey  have  their  clubs  and 
their  assembly-rooms,  their  dinners  and  their 
dances,  their  lawn-tennis  and  their  garden-parties, 
their  endless  occasions  and  opportunities  for  meet- 
ing and  mixing  with  one  another.  But  to  large 
classes  of  the  \o\\\\  populations  such  occasions 
and  opportunities  come  seldom  or  never.     Home 


\ 


\ 


HOME-LIFE.  129 

absorbs  the  whole  attention.  Not  only  is  this 
excessive  concentration  on  the  family  life  an  evil 
in  itself  and  a  source  of  unhappiness  to  young 
I)eoi)le,  but  it  is  also,  in  the  long  run,  productive 
of  serious  mental  troubles,  hysteria,  and  even  in- 
sanity. Madness,  as  Doctor  Maudsley,  the  great 
alienist,  has  admirably  pointed  out,  is  essentially 
a  disease  of  tlie  social  faculties.  Man  is  and  ought 
to  be  a  social  being ;  but,  when  proper  social 
intercourse  is  for  any  cause  denied  him,  when  he 
is  debarred  from  due  intermixture  with  his  own 
kind,  when  his  mind  is  turned  in  entirely  upon 
itself,  the  balance  of  his  faculties  is  soon  upset, 
and  insanity  sui)er\"enes.  Everybody  knows  that 
solitary  confinement  very  frequently  ends  in  mad- 
ness. Just  in  the  same  way,  though  of  course  to 
a  less  degree,  intense  restriction  to  the  narrow  limits 
of  the  house  and  the  household,  too  great  concen- 
tration of  the  ideas  and  interests  on  the  family 
alone,  help  in  the  end  to  fill  our  lunatic  asylums 
with  what  one  may  fairly  call  manufactured  mad- 
men. A  free,  expansive,  natural  intercourse  with 
men  and  women,  wide  interests  in  politics,  litera- 
ture, science,  art,  a  taste  for  outdoor  exercise, 
games,  rowing,  bicycling, —  these  are  the  best 
safeguards  against  such  evil  results  of  our  painful 
national  overcrowding. 

But  how  is  the  remedy  to  be  practically  applied  ? 
That  is  indeed  the  central  crux  and  grand  difficulty 


130  HOME-LIFE. 

of  the  whole  question  I  Perliaps  the  only  feasihle 
way  is  by  a  more  general  understanding  on  the 
part  of  heads  of  families  of  tlie  sujjreme  necessity 
for  liarmless  and  healtliful  social  intercourse.  It 
has  perliaps  been  too  much  the  habit  in  many  Pu- 
ritan households  to  look  with  disfavor  upon  every 
form  of  social  relaxation,  however  innocent  or  de- 
sirable in  itself.  Our  somewhat  austere  national 
life,  undoubtedly  on  the  whole  a  great  element 
in  the  strength  of  the  country,  does  little  harm 
and  much  good  in  country  pLaces ;  but,  when 
brought  to  bear  too  hardly  upon  the  artificial  con- 
ditions of  our  great  towns,  it  often  results  in  an 
almost  total  negation  of  all  pleasures  and  all  social 
meetings  of  every  sort  for  young  people.  It  is 
unhappily  the  fact  that  many  of  the  means  actually 
provided  for  the  amusement  of  our  population 
generally  are  open  to  serious  objection  on  the 
score  of  thc'r  moral  tendency.  Alter  all,  our 
masses,  viewed  in  the  mass,  have  very  little  choice 
except  tlie  saloon  and  the  music-hall.  What  is 
really  needed,  therefore,  is  that  heads  of  families 
and  persons  in  authority  generally  should  recog- 
nize more  fully  the  existing  need  for  wholesome 
and  harmless  social  amusements.  It  is  possible 
for  people  to  get  rid  of  that  essentially  mistaken 
and  unhealthy  feeling  that  there  is  something 
positively  wrong  in  the  lively  meeting  together  of 
young  and  old ;  and,  if  we  could  only  once  banish 


UOME-LIFB.  131 

that  baneful  lingering  relic  of  an  excessive  asceti- 
cism, fatlieis  and  niotlieis  would  rather  try  to 
bring  about  occasions  for  a  liealthy,  varied,  and 
frequent  intercourse  between  friends  and  neigli- 
bors.  Wliat  is  wanted  is  not  merely  that  young 
men  and  young  girls  should  see  much  of  one 
another  in  the  way  of  courtship  and  marriage  — 
tluit  is  a  minor  matter  which  always  arranges 
itself  somehow  with  marvellous  dexterity  even  in 
the  crowded  jarring  world  of  our  great  cities. 
The  real  need  is  a  need  for  seeing  more  of  one 
another  generally,  mixing  more  in  eacli  other's 
society,  letting  mind  rub  constantly  against  mind, 
promoting  the  free  interchange  of  ideas,  and, 
above  all,  gratifying  those  deep-seated  instincts  of 
sociability  which  are  implanted  by  nature  in  the 
heart  of  man  for  good  and  sufficient  reason,  and 
which  can  never  be  neglected  by  any  of  us  with 
safety  or  impunity.  The  family,  we  repeat,  is  and 
ought  to  be  a  great  deml :  but  it  is  not  and  it 
ought  not  to  be  absolutely  everything.  If  people 
make  it  everything,  if  they  move  always  in  its 
narrow  grooves,  if  they  refuse  to  stir  outside  it 
and  to  saturate  themselves,  as  it  were,  with  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  and  interests  of  others,  they 
will  pay  the  penalty  in  the  long  run  by  incurring 
insanity  for  themselves  or  their  children  and  de- 
scendants. Wider  sympathies  are  both  right  and 
wholesome.     Charity  begins  at  home  ;  but  it  does 


132  HOME-LIFE. 

not  end  there.  To  concentrate  all  one's  ideas  and 
all  one's  reflections  on  the  family  alone  is,  after  all, 
only  a  more  refined  form  of  selfishness  ;  and,  like 
ail  other  forms  of  selfishness,  it  inevitably  brings 
its  own  punishment  in  due  time  after  it. 


XII. 

THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE. 

There  is  no  beast  more  tlirifty  and  hardy  than 
the  common  goat;  and  yet,  Sir  Joseph  Hooker 
tells  us,  harmless  and  idyllic  animal  as  it  seems,  it 
has  probably  occasioned  far  greater  ruin  and  des- 
olation in  the  world  than  war  and  pestilence  put 
together.  At  first  sight  this  seems  a  very  hard 
saying,  though,  when  we  come  to  look  closely 
into  its  grounds  and  true  meaning,  it  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  observations  ever  made  upon 
the  occult  influences  perpetually  working  unseen 
in  the  balanced  and  nicely  adjusted  economy  of 
nature.  For  the  goat  has  destroyed  whole 
regions  of  forest-land,  and  altered  for  the  worse 
the  once  genial  climate  of  extensive  districts.  It 
is  the  habit  of  shee}),  gazelles,  and  most  antelopes 
to  browse  upon  grass  and  other  low  succulent  her- 
bage which  springs  again  as  quickly  as  it  is  grazed 
down.  But  the  goat,  essentially  a  mountain  ani- 
mal, accustomed  to  rockv  hillsides,  where  soft  turf 
and  greensward  are  quite  uid<nown,  feeds  natu- 
rally upon  the  dry  leaves  of  the  shrubs  and  bushes 

that  spring  among  tlie  crannies  of  its  native  crags. 

133 


134  THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE. 

When  introtlucod  into  a  wooded  rei:^ion,  tlierefore, 
the  goat  of  course  runs  riot  forthwith  among  the 
young  trees  and  tender  saplings  on  the  slopes  and 
terraces,  and,  multii)lying  rapidly,  soon  eats  down 
the  growth  of  underbrush  in  the  forest  district. 
As  fast  as  the  acorns  or  beechnuts  send  up  fresh 
suckers  of  oak  or  beech,  the  hungry  kids  nibble 
them  down  to  the  very  ground ;  and  thus,  unless 
strong  wire  ring  fences  are  made  to  protect  the 
copses,  the  forest  is  unable  naturally  to  reproduce 
itself  by  the  gradual  growth  of  you ug  trees  to 
rei)lace  their  elders.  In  time  the  older  trunks  decay 
and  die,  and  then  the  hillsides,  once  covered  with 
luscious  breadth  of  shade  and  foliage,  are  left 
naked,  exposed,  and  shadeless. 

Nor  is  tliat  all.  The  roots  of  the  trees,  extend- 
ing into  the  soil,  used  to  bind  the  earth  firmly  to- 
gether, and  prevent  it  from  being  washed  away  by 
the  winter  rains.  But  in  mountain  countries  it  is 
a  common  observation  that  only  wooded  hills  are 
crowned  witli  earth  and  verdure  to  the  top;  the 
woodless  ones  soon  have  their  soil  carried  off  by 
storm,  and  sliower,  and  breeze,  and  torrent,  wliich 
leave  their  bare  and  craggy  summits  deeply 
weather-beaten  by  the  wind  and  rain.  Once  more, 
such  drv  and  arid  hills  soon  lose  much  of  their 
power  of  attracting  clouds  and  causing  them  to 
discharge  their  fertilizing  flood.  Trees  are  the 
great  collectors  of  moisture ;  a  damp  soil,  shaded 


THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE.  135 

by  foliage,  is  necessary  in  order  to  keep  up  the 
due  amount  of  evaporation  and  subsequant  rain- 
fall, and  the  craggy  peaks,  left  bare  by  goats  of 
their  rising  forests,  cease  to  perform  their  original 
function  of  rain-condensers  for  the  surrounding 
country.  In  this  way,  it  is  believed,  many  hilly 
parts  of  Asia  Minor,  South  Italy,  India,  and  North 
Africa  have  been  denuded  of  their  primitive  for- 
ests, and  have  had  their  climate  rendered  seriously 
arid  by  the  mere  introduction  of  the  common  goat. 
And  yet  what  a  simple  and  harmless  thing  it  seems 
to  turn  out  a  few  dozen  goats,  wild,  upon  a 
wooded  hillside !  Who  would  ever  imajrine 
beforehand  that  by  so  doing  he  was  bringing  the 
desolation  of  the  sandy  desert  upon  a  once  happy 
and  smiling  landscape  ? 

It  is  always  so  in  nature,  up  and  down.  The 
world  around  us  is  a  vast  interlacing  whole,  a 
comi)lex  system  of  innumerable  parts,  each  of 
which  dovetails  so  neatly  into  the  next  tliat  it  is 
impossible  to  alter  one  of  the  pieces  in  tlie  least 
degree  without  upsetting  the  harmony  of  the 
whole  surrounding  and  adjacent  portions.  For 
example,  how  little  connection  there  appears  to 
be,  on  a  rough  glance,  between  the  number  of 
cats  in  a  given  district  and  the  fertility  of  clover- 
seed  in  the  same  i)lace  !  And  yet,  as  Mr.  Dar- 
Avin  has  pointed  out,  a  very  close  and  intimate  re- 
lation really  exists  between  the  two  unlike  facts. 


( 


136        THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE. 

Clover  always  produces  most  seed  in  the  iieigh- 
borliood  oi"  towns,  where  cats  are  abundant.  And 
the  reason  is  siin[)ly  this.  The  clover-blossom  has 
a  very  long  tube,  concealing  its  honey ;  and  the 
honey  can  be  reached  by  only  one  insect,  the 
liumble-bee,  which  has  a  proboscis  long  enough 
for  tlie  purpose.  Hence  only  humble-bees  ferti- 
lize the  clover,  carrying  the  pollen  from  one  blos- 
som to  another  on  their  hairy  legs.  Accordingly, 
the  more  bees,  the  more  clover-seed  in  any  par- 
ticular meadow.  But  humble-bees  themselves  are 
largely  kept  down  in  nuud)er  by  field-mice  and 
harvest-mice,  wliich  feed  upon  tlieui  ami  thin 
their  nests  with  great  voracity.  Here  we  get 
another  link  in  the  chain  —  tlie  more  field-mice, 
the  fewer  humble-bees,  and  therefore  in  the  end 
the  less  clover-seed.  Once  more,  cats  eat  rats 
and  mice,  and  among  the  fields  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  towns  harvest-mice  are  far  less  numerous 
than  elsewhere,  owing  to  tlie  depredations  of  their 
feline  enemies.  The  more  cats,  tlie  fewer  field- 
mice,  the  more  humble-bees,  and  so  finally  the 
more  clover-seed !  Professor  Huxley  has  even 
pushed  the  chain  of  causation  in  this  case  one 
link  farther  back,  and  ventured  to  add  that  the 
setting  of  the  clover-pods  was  ultimately  influ- 
enced by  the  nuud)er  of  old  maids  in  the  adjacent 
towns  ;  for  are  not  old  maids  in  the  last  resort  the 
great  cat-keepers?     Thus  we  might  almost  say,  if 


THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE.  137 

we  chose  to  pursue  the  matter  to  the  very  bot- 
tom, that  matrimony  is  injurious  to  the  interests 
of  the  ck)ver-crop.  This  may  indeed,  in  the 
Shakspearian  phrase,  be  to  inquire  too  curiously  ; 
and  yet  who  does  not  know  tlie  converse  and 
equally  singular  fact  that  the  number  of  marriaoes 
in  England  every  year  varies  regularly  with  the 
price  of  corn?  Whatever  makes  bread  cheaj)  en- 
courages a  certain  number  of  hesitating  youiinr 
people  to  marry  off-hand  ;  whatever  makes  it  dear 
decides  a  few  more  prudent  couples  to  wait  a 
little  longer  till  times  are  better  again. 

Corn  itself  supplies  us  with  another  remarkable 
example  of  the  extraordinary  cross-relations  and 
interactions  which  exist  among  all  the  factors  in 
the  balance  of  nature.  For  many  generations 
farmers  have  had  a  singular  and  almost  supersti- 
tious aversion  to  that  pretty  and  seemingly  harm- 
less shrub,  the  barberry.  Wherever  its  bright  red 
clusters  of  pendent  fruit  were  seen  hanging 
temptingly  from  the  hedgerows  the  bucolic  intelli- 
gence was  wont  to  assert  that  wheat  would  never 
thrive  or  prosper.  Occupiers  of  handsome  grounds 
laughed  at  this  quaint  and  apparently  meaningless 
notion ;  and  since  the  barberry,  with  its  crimson 
fruit  and  pale  green  foliage,  is  a  very  ornamental 
little  bush,  they  planted  it  freely,  in  spite  of  the 
farmers,  among  all  their  shrubberies.  Of  late 
years,  however,  microscopical    investigators  have 


138  THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE. 

begun  to  find  out  that  the  fiuiners  were  right 
after  all,  and  that  the  barberr^'-bush  does  really 
destroy  the  corn  in  its  neighborhood.  For  smut 
or  rust,  that  very  destructive  enemy  of  the  wheat- 
plant,  is  really  a  small  fungus  or  vegetable  para- 
site, which  passes  through  various  stages,  some- 
thing like  those  of  the  caterpillar,  the  chrysalis, 
and  the  butterfly  in  the  insect  world.  Now,  the 
first  or  infantile  stage  of  smut  is  passed  in  tlie 
barberry -leaves,  from  which  the  spores  or  tiny 
seeds  of  the  fungus  finally  migrate,  being  blown 
by  the  wind  among  the  nearest  wheat-fields. 
But,  if  there  were  no  barberry -bushes,  there  would 
be  no  leaves  on  which  to  nurse  the  young  smut- 
fungi,  and  so  the  disease  would  soon  be  extermi- 
nated altogether.  If  we  were  to  root  up  all  the 
barberries  in  America,  we  should  stamp  out  the 
smut  with  it.  Farmers  are  beginning  to  be  alive 
to  this  fact  at  present,  and  the  poor  barberries  are 
being  grubbed  up  with  exemplary  diligence  out  of 
all  the  woodlands. 

Inter-relations  of  this  sort  are  verv  common 
among  cultivated  crops,  though  it  is  only  in  quite 
recent  years  that  the  attention  of  naturalists  has 
been  fairly  directed  to  them.  There  seems  no  good 
reason  at  first  sight,  for  instance,  why  plum-trees 
should  not  be  grown  in  the  orchard  of  a  hop- 
farmer  ;  but  Kentish  experience  has  long  shown 
the  English  farmer  that  hops  are  specially  affected 


THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE.  139 

by  that  dpstructive  little  insect,  "the  tly,"  a  kind 
of  green  blight  or  a[)liis,  whenever  they  adjoin  u 
garden  with  plum-trees ;  and  late  researches  liave 
conclusively  shown  that  the  insect  in  question 
passes  its  early  larval  stnge  on  the  leaves  of  jduins, 
and  oidy  later  on  in  life  takes  to  preying  on  the 
ripening  hop-vines.  Thus,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  the  price  of  beer  in  England  is  in  the  last 
resort  unfavorably  affected  by  the  number  of 
plum-trees  in  Kent  and  Surrey.  The  year  after  a 
wet  summer,  in  fact,  is  particularly  bad  for  the 
liop-gardens ;  fly  then  usually  abounds  in  prodig- 
ious numbers.  And  the  reason  is  that  a  wet 
summer  prevents  lady-birds  from  laying  their  eggs 
in  peace  and  quiet;  and  it  is  the  grub  of  the 
lady-bird  that  chiefly  kee[)S  down  "  the  fly,"  on 
which  it  feeds  as  its  natural  prey.  Once  more, 
that  gaudy,  yellow  weed,  the  charlock  or  wild 
mustard,  that  often  makes  golden  the  wheat-fields 
on  slovenly  American  farms,  appears  to  be  inju- 
rious enough  in  its  own  way  to  the  wheat;  but 
why  on  earth  should  it  be  accounted  dangerous 
to  the  clean-kept  turnip-fields?  Simply  because 
charlock  is  the  native  food-plant  of  the  dreaded 
turnip-fly,  which  spreads  from  the  little  patches 
on  the  border  of  the  fields  to  the  long  rows  of 
neighboring  turnips.  Just  so  the  terrible  ''[)()tato- 
bug,"  or  Colorado  beetle,  the  pest  and  horror  of 
American  farmers,  fed  originally  on  a  wild  weed 


140        THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE. 

of  the  Rocky  Moniit;iijis  allied  to  the  potato, 
though  much  more  slirubby  ;  but,  as  soon  as  cul- 
tivation in  its  westward  development  brought  the 
true  tuber-bearing  plant,  with  its  succulent  stem 
and  leaf,  within  reach  of  the  Colorado  beetle, 
that  enterprising  insect,  struck  immediately  by 
its  close  resemblance  to  his  ancestral  food,  ob- 
served to  himself,  in  a  thoughtful  fashion,  "I 
shouldn't  be  surprised  if  I  could  live  upon  that 
new-fangled  })lant  there  quite  as  well  as  upon  the 
original  solanum."  He  tried  the  experiment,  and, 
to  the  horror  of  all  America,  it  succeeded  admira- 
bly. Thenceforward  the  Colorado  beetle  became 
a  power  in  the  world  ;  legislatures  enacted  statutes 
to  his  prejudice,  and  foreign  governments  watched 
their  ports  to  prevent  his  entrance  as  jealously  as 
if  he  liad  been  a  friend  of  humanity  with  a  hun- 
dredweight of  dynamite  in  a  small  black  port- 
manteau. 

All  nature  is  one  vast  network  of  such  contin- 
uous and  ceaseless  interactions.  Kill  off  the  spar- 
rows or  other  small  birds,  and  the  grubs,  worms, 
and  insects  increase  enormously.  In  return,  the 
plants  and  fruits  suffer;  there  are  no  gooseberries, 
no  currants,  no  lettuces,  and  very  few  green  peas. 
Drain  the  fens,  and  j^ou  upset  the  balance  of  life 
for  a  whole  district.  With  the  water  go  the 
fishes  and  water-weeds,  the  pond-snails  and  pond- 
beetles.     Where  there  are  no  fish  there  can  be  no 


THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE.  141 

herons  and  no  nioor-hens,  few  ducks,  wild-fowl,  or 
snipe.  Tlie  birds  tliat  hunted  for  worms  and 
insects  in  the  soft  ooze  are  driven  elsewhere ;  tlie 
frogs,  the  newts,  the  toads,  the  dragon-flies  are 
deprived  of  the  hatching-places  for  their  tadpoles 
or  larva).  The  gnats  and  May-flies  and  small 
water-haunting  insects  disap})ear,  and  with  thein 
the  swifts  and  swallows  that  chased  them  open- 
mouthed  across  the  basking  waters.  One  species 
of  butterfly,  peculiar  to  the  English  fens,  became 
entirely  extinct  with  the  draining  of  Wliittlesea 
Mere ;  many  others  which  still  survive  in  conti- 
nental Eur()[)e  were  driven  from  their  last  English 
dwelling-place.  In  such  a  complex  world  as  this 
it  is  impossible  to  alter  a  single  factor  without 
disturbing  the  whole  balance  of  nature  in  a  thou- 
sand particulars.  So  insignificant  a  fact  as  the 
accidental  introduction  of  the  Canadian  river- 
weed  into  England  has  cost  English  canal-compa- 
nies thousands  of  pounds  in  dredging  operations, 
lias  converted  ponds  and  reservoirs  into  festering 
masses  of  green  stagnation,  has  killed  out  the 
trout  and  the  crayfish  in  innumerable  streamlets, 
and  has  fostered  the  growth  of  carp  at  the  ex- 
pense of  bream,  roach,  and  pike  in  hundreds  of 
rivers.  It  is  impossible  even  to  kill  a  fly  or  a 
chipmunk  without  bringing  about  a  whole  petty 
revolution  in  the  world  around  us.  Not  a  plant 
but   owes  its  safety  to  the  friendly  intervention 


142  THE  BALANCE   OF  NATURE. 

of  one  particular  insect,  and  suffers  destruction 
from  tlie  untimely  attentions  and  depredations  of 
another.  If  you  catch  all  the  caterpillars  of  a 
special  sort  which  prey  npon  the  tender  shoots  of 
your  gooseberries,  you  are  indeed  insuring  the 
safety  of  the  leaves  and  fruit  of  those  useful 
bushes ;  but  you  are  at  the  same  time  externii- 
nating  the  future  moths  by  whose  kindly  aid  your 
cabbages  and  cauliflowers  can  alone  be  induced  to 
set  their  seeds  for  coming  seasons.  It  is  impossi- 
ble for  us  ever  to  produce  only  the  exact  single 
result  that  we  ourselves  personally  desire  ;  what- 
ever positive  steps  we  take  entail  innumerable  and 
far-reaching  consequences  which  far  outrun  our 
feeble  little  human  powers  of  calculation.  Noth- 
ing in  the  world  stands  absolutely  alone  and 
isolated  in  its  own  domain  ;  every  fact  and  every 
object  are  but  parts  in  one  great  continuous 
whole,  infinitely  varied,  but  infinitely  interwoven 
and  infinitely  interdependent.  Each  creature  has 
endless  relations,  not  with  one  other  creature 
alone  among  the  many  around  it,  but  with  the 
whole  chain  and  group  of  creatures  by  which  it  is 
environed  ujion  every  side.  It  is  the  common 
error  of  the  human  species  to  underestimate  the 
vast  and  wonderful  complexity  of  nature,  to  sup- 
pose that  it  can  deal  with  facts  as  isolated,  and 
overlook  the  whole  enormous  series  of  remote 
consequences  that  follow  of  necessity  upon  every 


THE  BALANCE  OF  NATURE.  I43 

act.  Such  an  attempt  is  always  futile,  and  brings 
with  it  its  own  condemnation.  Whatever  we  do 
entails  far  more  than  we  ever  imagined,  antl 
carries  with  it  an  entire  sequence  of  distant 
effects  whose  very  existence  we  never  counted 
upon. 


XITT. 

THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  novel  results 
of  the  impetus  lately  given  to  biological  science 
is  the  power  which  it  has  now  fairly  attained  of 
reconstructing  for  us  to  a  certain  degree  tlie  gene- 
alogy and  past  history  of  many  among  the  most 
familiar  cultivated  plants  and  domestic  animals. 
In  no  case  has  such  a  reconstruction  been  more 
fully  or  more  satisfactorily  effected  than  in  the 
instance  of  our  old  friends  and  constant  allies,  the 
horse  and  the  donkey.  By  a  happy  series  of  for- 
tunate accidents,  the  fossil  bones  of  all  the  inter- 
mediate links  in  the  long  chain  of  equine  animals 
have  been  preserved  for  us  among  the  upheaved 
rocks  of  various  countries,  but  more  es[)ecially  of 
Western  America.  By  comparison  of  their  differ- 
ent minor  details  with  one  another,  we  are  now 
enabled  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  successive 
stages  in  the  evolution  of  liorsehood,  and  to  follow 
the  fortunes  of  that  very  interesting  and  useful 
family,  from  the  tiny  ancestor,  no  bigger  than  a 
fox,  who  roamed  at  his  own  sweet  will  over  the 
grassy  plains  of  the  early  Tertiary  period,  down  to 

144 


THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE.  145 

tlio  noble  creature  wliose  arclied  nock  and  slender 
IciTS  command  the  admiration  of  ten  thousand 
connoisseurs  on  the  English  downs  U[K)n  a  modern 
Derby-day. 

If  we  compare  the  horse,  the  donkey,  tlie  zebra, 
and  their  allies,  as  we  know  them  nowadays,  with 
all  other  forms  of  existing-  quadruped,  there  is  one 
difference  so  innnediately  striking  that  it  cannot 
fail  to  attract  the  attention  of  even  the  most 
casual  and  superficial  observer.  While  other  ani- 
mals have  five,  four,  three,  or  at  least  two  toes, 
the  liorse  family  stand  alone  in  the  possession 
of  a  single  solid  and  undivided  hoof  upon  each  of 
the  fore  and  hind  legs  alike.  It  is  this  hoof,  of 
course,  with  its  firm  tread  upon  the  plain  beneath, 
that  gives  the  horse  his  undoubted  superiority  over 
all  other  forms  of  quadruped  as  a  swift  runner 
and  a  sure-footed,  trustworthy  beast  of  burden. 
The  hoof,  therefore,  may  be  fairly  looked  upon  as 
tlie  great  trade-mark  or  family  scutcheon  of  the 
liorses  and  tlieir  allies,  the  one  chief  })oint  of  van- 
tage whereby  they  have  made  good  their  jiositioii 
upon  all  the  great  level  grasslands  of  the  world, 
from  the  South  American  pampas  to  the  Austra- 
lian plains,  and  from  the  African  vehit,  with  its 
multitudinous  herds  of  graceful  zebras,  to  the 
Central  Asian  stej)pes  roamed  over  in  abundance 
b}'  countless  troops  of  beautiful  onagers  ami  Tib- 
etan wild  asses.     Now,  anatomy   teaches    us   that 


146  HE  HORSE  AND   HIS  PEDIGREE. 

tlie  solid  hoof  wliicli  tlius  distingiiislies  the  horse 
Idiid  as  51  group  from  all  other  types  of  less  nohlo 
quadrupeds  is  in  reality  a  single  toe;  the  four 
other  toes  which  the  ancestors  of  the  horse  origi- 
nally inherited  from  the  common  progenitor  of 
the  whole  great  inannnalian  group  have  heen  grad- 
ually lost  through  disuse  in  the  course  of  long  and 
slow  ages,  and  only  a  solitary  large  and  heavy  nail 
at  present  remains  in  the  horse  and  the  donkey, 
in  strict  adaptation  to  the  native  habits  of  the 
great  race  as  rapid  scourers  over  the  free  plains  of 
a  wide,  untill(Hl,  and  grass-clad  continent. 

The  earliest  recognizable  ancestor  of  the  mod- 
ern horse  whose  bones  geological  research  has 
succeeded  in  disentond)ing  for  our  inspection  from 
the  eocene  rocks  of  Western  America  was  a  small 
creature  no  bigger  than  a  fox,  whose  fore-feet  had 
four  large  toes  and  a  fifth  much  smaller  one,  while 
on  the  hind-feet  the  lunnber  of  toes  was,  even  at 
that  comparatively  early  period,  reduced  to  three. 
These  pretty  little  i)rimitive  ponies  must  have 
stood,  in  point  of  size,  to  our  modern  Arabs  in 
somewhat  the  same  comparative  relation  as  a  toy- 
terrier  now  stands  to  a  Cuban  bloodhound  or  an 
English  mastiff.  They  were,  in  short,  mere  baby- 
horses,  Tom  Thumb  predecessors  of  our  own 
gigantic  Suffolk  punches.  Hut  the  world  waa  all 
before  them,  on  which  to  feed  and  giow,  and  the 
race  still  retained  the  plasticity  of  youth,  wnich 


THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE.  147 

enabled  it  to  strike  out  new  varieties  in  abund- 
ance, even  better  adapted  than  itself  to  the  condi- 
tions of  existence  u[)on  the  broad  table-lands  of 
the  great  continents.  The  fewer  the  toes,  the 
lirnier  the  tread  ;  and  so,  in  a  slightly  later  deposit, 
we  find  that  tlie  still  develoiting  iiorse-like  crea- 
ture has  lost  the  useless  fifth  toe  on  its  front  foot, 
and  has  confined  itself  to  four  and  tliree  apiece 
on  its  fore  and  hind  limbs  respectively.  As  we 
trace  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  horse-kind 
upward  through  the  successive  stages  of  the  Terti- 
ary rocks,  we  find  the  animals  increasing  in  size 
and  diminishing  in  number  of  toes  at  each  suc- 
ceeding level  of  deposit.  In  the  miocene  beds  of 
Oregon  and  Nebraska  we  come  first  upon  a  pony- 
like creature  as  big  as  a  sheep,  with  only  tliree 
toes  upon  the  front  feet,  all  of  them  hoofed,  but 
with  the  central  toe  decidedly  the  biggest  and  the 
most  firndy  [)lanted  upon  the  ground  beneath.  It 
is  this  big  central  toe  that  has  finally  developed 
into  the  single  hoof  of  our  horses  and  donkeys, 
growing  ever  larger,  broader,  and  more  solid, 
while  the  side-toes  grew  progressively  smaller, 
shorter,  and  more  useless.  Hy  the  pliocene  period, 
once  more,  which  succeeded  the  miocene,  our  de- 
veloping horses  have  progressed  from  the  size  of 
a  sheep  to  that  of  a  donkey;  and  each  foot  has 
then  got  a  large  middle  toe,  on  which  the  animal 
walks  firmly,  flanked  by  two  smaller  and  uinieces- 


148  THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE. 

saiy  toes,  which  do  not  reach  the  ground  at  all, 
exactly  as  is  the  case  with  the  small  side-trotters 
or  dew-claws  of  the  pig  and  the  deer  in  our  own 
day.  Next  we  find  these  useless  side-toes  slowly 
coalescing  with  the  chief  bone  of  the  one  central 
toe  or  hoof,  till  at  last  they  remain  in  our  own 
modern  horses  and  donkeys  only  as  those  lateral 
knobs  known  to  veterinaries  as  the  splint-bones. 
To  the  very  last,  however,  the  lioise  retains  in  his 
existing  skeleton  the  faint  marks  of  the  time 
when  his  ancestors  possessed  at  least  three  dis- 
tinct toes;  and  his  present  solid  solitary  hoof  has 
been  gradually  developed  in  the  long  course  of 
scouring  over  the  open  i)lains  which  form  in  the 
free  wild  state  the  natund  dwelling-place  of  all 
his  kind.  Indeed,  even  at  the  present  day  the 
fully  developed  horse  still  shows  at  times  a  ten- 
dency to  "  throw  back  "  to  the  primitive  form  of 
his  remoter  ancestry,  and  cases  are  on  record  of 
horses  having  been  born  with  three  distinct  toes 
on  each  foot,  after  precisely  the  same  simple  fash- 
ion as  their  early  geological  progenitors. 

Even  more  interesting,  perha[)s,  than  these 
remoter  chapters  in  the  ancestry  of  the  horse  are 
the  traces  which  he  still  occasionally  manifests  in 
his  outward  ap[)earance  of  his  direct  descent  in 
later  times  from  a  stri})ed  and  banded  asinine  ani- 
mal like  the  modern  zebra.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that,  at  the  point  when  the  horse  family,  in 


THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE.  149 

its  upward  progress,  had  readied  a  stage  equiva- 
lent to  tliat  of  the  zebra  tyi)e,  it  must  have  been 
adorned  by  conspicuous  black  and  white  belts  and 
markings  along  the  whole  length  of  its  sides,  its 
back,  its  thighs,  and  its   legs.     Among  the  differ- 
ent horse-like  animals  now  known  to  us,  there  are 
several    intermediate    gradations   in   this  respect, 
from  the  true  zebra  of  Southern  Africa,  which  is 
elegantly  banded  with   black    and  white    stripes 
over  all  its  body,  including  even  the  tail  and  fet- 
lock, to  the  true  Arab,  which  is  absolutely  uniform 
in  color  from  its  nose  to  its  hoof,  and  betrays  not 
the   slightest   trace   or    remnant   of    the    original 
banded  variegation.     Starting  with  the  pure  black 
and  white  mountain  zebra,  the  most  decorated  and 
belted  of   all,  we   next  get   to    BurchelTs    zebra, 
which  is  black  and  yellow,  and  has  comparatively 
few  stri[)es  upon  its  head  and   body,  with  hardly 
any  on  its  flanks,  legs,  and  tail.     Next  in  order  to 
this  transilional  form  comes  the  curious  quagga  of 
the  now  historical  Transvaal,  whose  stripes  are  con- 
fined to  his  head  and  neck  and  the  forepart  of  his 
body,  without  descending  at  all  upon  the  legs  or 
buttocks.     The  wild  ass  of   Tibet  still  ])reserves 
the  noble  outline  of  the    zebra   grouji,  but  is  not 
stri[)ed  at  all,  having  its  back  marked  instead  with 
a   broad    black    band,  without    any  trace    of   the 
transverse  bar  across  the  shoulders.     The  wild  ass 
of  Abyssinia,  on  the  other  hand,  from  which  breed 


150      THE  HORSE  AND   HIS  PEDIGREE. 

our  domestic  donkeys  are  most  certainly  descend- 
ed, lias  tlie  well  known  cross  fairly  marked  upon 
his  back  and  shoulders,  together  with  small  banded 
zebra-like  stripes  upon  his  hind-legs.  We  may 
therefore  pretty  confidently  conclude  that  the 
common  ancestor  of  horses  and  donkeys  was  a 
zebra-like  animal,  more  or  less  strikingly  marked 
with  black  and  white  belts  over  the  whole  surface 
of  his  legs  and  body. 

Now,  our  modern  donkey,  as  Mr.  Darwin  long 
ago  pointed  out,  often  shows  by  reversion  very 
distinct  transverse  bars  on  it  legs,  like  those  on 
the  legs  of  the  zebra ;  and  these  bars  are  most 
noticeable  in  the  young  foal,  which  thus  follows 
the  rule  of  all  other  young  animals  in  conforming 
more  closely  than  the  fall  grown  form  to  the  pecu- 
liarities of  its  remoter  ancestors.  The  stripe  on 
the  donkey's  shoulder,  again,  is  sometimes  donble, 
—  a  zebra-like  trait  which  closely  assimilates  it  to 
the  wild  qungga  of  the  Transvaal  jmstures.  Evea 
among  lioi'ses  themselves,  the  dark  stripe  down 
the  back  frequently  occurs  in  the  most  distinct 
breeds  ;  and  transverse  bars  on  the  legs  have  often 
been  observed  on  duns  and  mouse-duns,  and 
more  rarely  on  chestnuts.  A  faint  shoulder-stripe 
may  occasionally  be  seen  in  the  same  cases;  and 
Mr.  Darwin  once  noted  traces  of  the  sort  in  a 
bay  horse.  A  Belgian  cart-horse  had  a  donble 
stripe  on  each  shoulder,  as  well  as  leg-bars;   and 


THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE.  151 

a  small  dun  Welsh  pony  had  actually  as  many  as 
three  stripes,  thus  closely  approaching  the  ty[)e  of 
coloration  that  prevails  universally  in  Burchell's 
zebra.  It  is  impossible  not  to  regard  these  curi- 
ous facts  as  indications  that  our  modern  horses 
are  ultimately  derived  from  a  more  or  less  regu- 
larly striped  and  banded  zebra-like  ancestor.  In 
the  case  of  mules,  indeed,  we  get  an  excellent 
opportunity  of  testing  the  reality  of  this  hypothet- 
ical conclusion ;  for  the  mule  is  the  offspring  of 
the  ass  and  the  mare,  and  as  such  might  naturally 
be  expected  to  reproduce  in  its  own  person  the 
primitive  features  of  their  common  ancestor. 
Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  mules  have  almost  always 
barred  legs,  and  some  of  them  have  the  bars  quite 
as  distinctly  marked  as  on  the  hind-legs  of  a  moun- 
tain zebra ;  tiiey  are  also  sometimes  banded  on 
the  back  and  shoulders.  In  the  young  mule  par- 
ticularly, the  stripes  and  bars  are  very  common, 
and  in  tlie  warmer  parts  of  America  —  where  the 
climate  closely  resembles  that  of  their  original 
sub-tropical  home  —  these  reversionary  markings 
are  almost  universal. 

The  divergence  of  the  true  horse  from  the  ass 
group  is  a  still  later  and,  we  might  almost  say, 
historical  event.  Donkeys  and  their  congeners 
differ  mainly,  as  is  well  known,  from  the  true 
horses  in  the  fact  that  their  tail  is  comparatively 
hairless  in  the  upper  part,  with  a  tuft  or  brush  of 


152  THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE. 

long  hairs  at  the  end  alone  ;  whereas  in  the  horse's 
the  loiiof  hairs  heijin  from  the  very  sunmiit  of  the 
tail,  and  give  it  that  peculiarly  shaggy  and  noble 
appearance  so  very  distinctive  of  the  high-bied 
creature.  INIoreover,  the  donkey  and  zebra  group 
have  horny  patches  on  the  fore-legs  only,  while 
the  true  horses  have  them  on  both  fore  and  hind 
legs.  Till  very  lately  no  intermediate  form  be- 
tween these  two  groups  was  known  to  exist,  and 
the  whole  modern  horse  family  was  arbitiarily 
divided  into  a  couple  of  distinct  and  separate  bod- 
ies,—  the  true  horses  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
asses,  zebras,  and  quaggas  on  the  other.  Quite 
recently,  however,  the  indefatigable  Russian  trav- 
eller Pi'jevalsky  has  discovered  among  the  high 
table-lands  of  Central  Asia,  on  the  Siberian  side,  a 
new  intermediate  connecting  link,  half  way  in  size 
and  appearance  between  the  horses  and  the  don- 
keys, with  a  coarse  head  and  neck,  iind  weak  in 
his  points,  yet  with  the  long  hairs  of  his  tail  nei- 
ther springing  from  the  very  top,  as  in  the  liorse, 
nor  collected  in  a  tuft  at  the  bottom,  as  in  the 
donkey,  but  scattered  about  in  the  upper  portion 
and  thicker  and  tuftier  in  the  brush  below.  This 
undoubtedl}^  intermediate  sj.ecies — a  half-way 
house  between  horsedom  and  donkeydom  —  which 
has  been  named,  after  its  discoverer,  "Prjevalsky's 
horse,"  represents  in  all  probability  a  late  common 
ancestor  of  the  horses  and  the  donkeys,  or  perhaps 


THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE.  153 

we  oiiglit  more  correctly  to  say,  a  donkey-like  ani- 
mal arrested  on  its  way  to  become  a  liorse,  and 
preserved  for  us  by  some  lucky  chance  through  so 
many  ages  in  that  remote  and  inaccessible  region. 
What  renders  this  conclusion  the  more  probable 
is  the  interesting  fact  that  we  still  possess  some 
excellent  though  very  ancient  portraits  of  ex- 
tremely early  European  horses,  scratched  for  us 
with  the  points  of  flint  knives  on  broken  frag- 
ments of  reindeer-horn  or  mammoth-tusks  by  the 
dark  and  slouching  prehistoric  savages  who  dwelt 
among  the  caverns  of  Southern  France  while  the 
great  woolly  elephant  still  roamed  over  the  frozen 
plains  of  glacial  Europe,  and  the  cave-bear  and 
hyena  still  sought  their  prey  beside  the  ancient 
valleys  of  the  Seine  and  the  Dordogne.  In  these 
very  antique  sketches  we  are  shown  the  counter- 
feit presentment  of  the  wild  horses  which  the  men 
of  the  period  stalked  and  ate,  but  had  never  learnt 
to  catch  and  domesticate  in  their  own  service. 
The  outline  thus  rudely  engraved  on  a  bit  of  bone 
or  a  fragment  of  antler  shows  us  an  animal  with 
a  large  head,  thick  neck,  and  big  mane,  coarse  and 
clumsy  in  all  its  points,  but  exactly  like  Prjeval- 
sky's  horse,  and,  what  is  still  more  important  to 
notice,  with  the  hairs  of  its  tail  s[)ringing,  as  in 
the  newly  discovered  species,  from  half  way  down 
the  stump  only.  There  can  be  very  little  doubt, 
therefore,  that  at  the  date  of  the  Glacial  Period  or 


154  THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  PEDIGREE. 

Great  Ice  Age  the  horse  had  reached  only  the  stage 
of  development  shown  us  now  by  the  new  Central 
Asian  species,  and  that  it  has  since  been  improved 
(mainly,  no  doubt,  by  human  care  and  selection) 
to  the  graceful  beauty  of  the  modern  Arab,  while 
its  brethren  of  the  Siberian  ])lains,  left  entirely  to 
their  devices,  have  retained  to  this  day  the  coarse 
points  and  clumsy  outline  which  distinguished 
their  early  preglacial  ancestors.  It  is  interesting 
thus  to  be  enabled  to  trace  by  gradual  stages  the 
development  of  a  single  great  line  of  animals  from 
the  diminutive  little  five-toed  eocene  species, 
through  so  many  and  diverse  intermediate  forms, 
to  the  tall,  stately,  and  noble  race-horse  of  our 
own  modern  civilized  epoch. 


XIV. 

THE   BEST  rOLICY. 

Is  honesty  tlie  best  policy?  This  is  an  inquiry 
wliich  an  old  proverb  has  long  ago  answered  for 
us  off-hand  in  the  aflirniative ;  and  the  attempt  to 
re-open  the  question  now  after  it  has  been  so  long 
settled  to  everybody's  satisfaction  may  seem  to 
many  people  at  first  sight  to  smack  of  meddling 
with  edge-tools  —  to  be  little  less  than  wicked  and 
immoral,  or,  at  any  rate,  highly  inexpedient.  But, 
when  we  look  a  little  more  deeply  into  the  matter, 
it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  a  comfortable  ac- 
quiescence in  the  conception  of  honesty  as  the  best 
policy  is,  in  any  measure,  a  necessary  part  of  the 
higliest  and  truest  morality.  Even  if  we  are  per- 
fectly convinced  in  any  particular  case  that  a  dis- 
honest action  would  be  for  our  immediate  or  per- 
manent advantage,  for  example,  that  belief  ought 
not  in  the  least  to  weigh  with  us  in  tlie  practical 
governance  of  our  future  conduct  as  moral  beings. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  merely  believe 
loosely  in  honesty  because  we  think,  in  the  com- 
mon phrase,  that  "it  pays  in  the  long  run,'*  we 

are  not,  in  the  truest  and  highest  sense,  honest  at 

155 


156  THE  BEST  POLICY. 

all ;  we  are  being  guided  simply  in  tins  matter  by 
expediency  and  self-interest,  not  by  high  principle 
and  due  regard  for  the  ultimate  prevalence  of  ab- 
stract justice.  The  imaginary  Quaker  in  the  old 
story  who  knew  that  honesty  was  a  better  policy 
than  dishonesty  because  he  had  "tried  both"  could 
not  properly  be  considered  os  honest  at  all ;  he 
was  merely  a  clever  and  intelligent,  but  unscru- 
pulous trader,  who  had  found  out  by  dint  of 
experiment  the  best  way  of  attracting  and  keep- 
ing a  large  connection  of  customers  in  this  com- 
mercial universe  of  ours.  A  man  who  was  honest 
on  this  ground  alone  would,  of  course,  yield  to 
temptation  immediately,  if  in  any  particular  case  it 
became  quite  clear  to  him  that  by  some  single  act 
of  great  dishonesty — say  by  forging  a  signature  or 
by  destroying  a  will  —  he  could  make  himself  com- 
fortable in  worldly  circumstances  for  ever  after- 
wards. 

No ;  the  only  kind  of  honesty  really  worthy  of 
the  name  is  that  which  proceeds  not  from  a  delib- 
erate calculation  of  i)ersonal  consequences,  but 
from  a  genuine  and  deep-seated  hatred  and  loath- 
ing for  any  dirty,  mean,  or  questionable  conduct. 
The  truly  honest  man  is  the  one  who  will  not  do 
a  wrong  act  because  the  act  itself  excites  in  his 
mind,  apart  from  consequences,  an  immediate  dis- 
gust and  almost  instinctive  lepugnance.  In  this 
matter  a  great  many  estimable  people  really  de- 


THE  BEST  POLICY.  157 

ceive  themselves  to  their  own  discredit,  and 
underrate  the  true  strength  of  the  moral  feelings 
in  their  inner  personality.  If  asked  wliy  they  do 
not  do  certain  dishonest  or  disgraceful  actions, 
they  will  probably  answer  glibly  enough  because 
they  would  be  imprisoned  or  otlierwise  punished 
for  them.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  real 
deterrent  in  most  cases,  with  all  worthy  persons, 
is  not  the  fear  of  external  punishment;  it  is  the 
natural,  almost  instinctive  hatred  of  the  wrong 
action.  Tliere  are  instances  in  which  this  is  so 
immediately  apparent  that  nobody  can  for  a  mo- 
ment fail  to  perceive  the  truth  as  soon  as  the 
issue  is  fairly  presented  to  him.  Why,  for  in- 
stance, do  we  habitually  abstain  from  grossly  ill- 
treating  or  cruelly  abusing  dumb  creatures?  Is 
it  because  the  officers  of  the  Societv  for  the  Pre- 
vention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  are  always  on  the 
alert  to  detect  us  if  we  do,  and  to  inflict  upon  us  as 
penalty  a  paltry  fine,  not  exceeding  forty  shillings? 
Surely  not!  It  is  because  we  cannot  endure  in 
our  own  minds  the  bare  idea  of  brutal  behavior 
towards  a  helpless  and  inoifensive  animal.  It  is 
because  an  innate  shrinking  would  hold  us  back 
from  kicking  or  beating  it,  even  if  we  were,  for 
experiment's  sake,  to  make  a  sort  of  vain  attempt 
at  so  doing.  This  internal  repugnance  to  any 
wrong  act  is,  in  fact,  the  true  test  whether  in  any 
particular  respect  we  are  perfectly  or  imperfectly 


158  THE  BEST  POLICY. 

moral.  Tliere  are  modes  of  wrong-doing  which 
have  teni[)tation.s  for  us  all,  each  of  us  after  his 
own  kind  —  sins  that  do  most  easily  beset  us; 
and,  as  regards  these,  we  are  so  far  confessedly  in 
an  imperfect  moral  condition.  But  there  are 
other  modes  of  wrong-doing  which  present  no 
temptation  at  all  to  many  of  us,  brutal,  or  dirty, 
or  disgraceful  actions  from  which  we  shrink  im- 
mediately of  our  own  accord,  and  which  no  amount 
of  inducement  or  encouragement  could  ever  for  a 
moment  tempt  us  to  commit;  and,  as  regards  these, 
we  may  consider  ourselves  so  far  in  a  perfectly 
and  truly  moral  condition.  The  really  honest 
man  is  thus  the  man  who  abstains  from  dishonesty 
not  because  he  believes  it  to  be  bad  policy,  but 
because  the  bare  idea  of  such  conduct  is  immedi- 
ately repugnant  to  his  conscience  and  his  better 
feelings. 

Even  if  we  take  into  consideration  the  existence 
of  future  rewards  and  punishments,  the  same 
thing  is  to  a  great  extent  true.  To  be  sure,  we 
may  say  that,  from  this  point  of  view,  at  least, 
honesty  is  always  in  the  long  run  the  best  pol- 
icy,  for  all  who  believe  in  a  retribution  for 
deeds  performed  in  this  world.  Yet  here  again  a 
great  many  j^eople,  no  doubt,  deceive  themselves 
at  first  sight,  answering  readily  enough  that  they 
abstain  from  such  and  such  acts  from  the  just  fear 
of  future  consequences.    But,  in  reality,  to  abstain 


THE  BEST  POLICY.  159 

on  this  ground  alone  is  to  take  tlje  very  lowest 
possible  view  of  our  moral  and  religious  obliga- 
tions. Though  the  belief  in  the  future  retribution 
is  indeed  j)resent,  it  is  not  the  ehief  or  the  only 
nu)tive ;  in  the  holiest  characters  it  is  tlie  very 
least  of  motives.  To  do  riglit  merely  for  tlie  sake 
of  avoiding  punishment  or  of  obtaining  reward, 
though,  of  course,  a  great  deal  better  than  doing 
wrong,  is  by  no  means  the  highest  and  truest  mo- 
rality. Far  grander  and  nobler  is  the  aim  so 
beautifully  set  forth  by  the  greatest  of  living 
English  poets :  — 

"  To  live  by  law, 
Actlnj?  the  law  we  live  by  without  fear, 
And  because  right  i.s  ri^lit  to  follow  right, 
Were  wisdom  in  the  bforn  of  consequence." 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  higher  ethics,  there- 
fore, it  is  really  a  quite  allowable  question  to  ask 
whether  honesty  is  or  is  not  actually  the  best  pol- 
icy. Even  if  it  should  turn  out  as  the  result  of 
our  inquiry  that  it  is  not  so,  right-tloing  would 
thereby  receive  no  detriment;  for,  whether  a 
thing  is  profitable  or  not  has  nothing  at  all  to  do, 
in  reality,  with  the  ultimate  question  whether  we 
can  lawfully  j)ursue  it  or  otherwise.  Happily, 
however,  for  the  frailties  of  human  nature,  the 
old  proverb  does  really  seem  to  enclose  the  genu- 
ine kernel  of  a  profound  truth.  There  can  be 
very  little  doubt  that,  on  the  average,  and  iu  the 


160  THE  BEST  POLICY. 

vjust  majority  of  instances,  honesty  produces  its 
material  reward,  even  here  and  now,  wliile  dis- 
lionesty  meets  in  the  h)ng  run  with  its  appropriate 
penalty.  Of  course  this  is  true  only  on  the  aver- 
age of  cases.  Nobody  can  doubt  that  there  are 
many  men  who  have  amassed  large  fortunes  by 
very  shady  or  questionable  means  and  who  have 
been  in  every  way  what  we  commonly  call  suc- 
cessful people.  To  be  sure,  in  a  certain  number 
of  such  instances,  the  owner  of  the  ill-gotten 
wealth  may  have  been  subject,  sooner  or  later,  to 
the  pangs  of  a  remorseful  conscience  —  but  not 
always.  It  is  quite  clear  that  there  are  in  the 
world,  however  painful  it  may  be  to  us  to  recog- 
nize it,  certain  persons  who  are  utterly  incapable 
of  feeling  any  remorse  whatsoever  for  the  most 
disgraceful  or  criminal  actions,  and  who  go  to  the 
grave  without  having  ever  experienced  a  single 
qualm  or  a  passing  pang  for  their  most  abominable 
and  atrocious  deeds.  We  may  shut  our  eyes  to 
the  fact  as  much  as  we  like ;  but  it  is  a  fact,  and 
no  amount  of  i^jnorinff  it  will  suffice  to  render  it 
the  less  real.  Cases,  we  must  admit,  do  occur 
where  dishonesty  seems  to  be,  so  far  as  the  present 
world  alone  is  concerned,  distinctly,  from  that  very 
low  platform,  the  best  policy. 

But  such  cases  are,  fortunately,  extremely  rare. 
In  the  world,  as  generally  constituted,  the  need 
for  trust  and  well  grounded  confidence  between 


THE  BEST  POLICY.  161 

man  and  man  is  so  great  that  the  honest  dealer, 
in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  has  the 
best  of  it.  It  is  so  absolutely  necessary  for  us  to 
be  able  to  receive  one  another's  words  freely, 
to  believe  in  the  due  performance  of  contracts,  to 
accept  the  ordinary  warranty  of  goods  —  in  short, 
to  confide  in  the  average  honesty  of  the  whole 
community  —  that  the  man  whom  we  once  dis- 
cover in  an  untruth  or  catch  in  a  flagrant  piece  of 
dishonest  practice  is  pretty  sure  to  lose  forthwith 
the  countenance  or  custom  of  all  those  who  know 
of  his  delinquency.  A  good  name  is  better  than 
riches ;  and  to  lose  one's  good  name  is,  in  almost 
ever}""  ordinary  instance,  to  lose  the  means  of  ac- 
quiring a  livelihood.  Of  course,  there  are  some 
few  men  whom  we  all  know  to  be  rogues,  and 
who  nevertheless  manage  to  amass  considerable 
fortunes;  but  such  cases  are  quite  exceptional, 
and  are  possible  only  in  a  very  few  out-of-the- 
way  walks  of  life.  In  most  professions,  in  most 
trades,  and  in  most  callings,  services,  or  handi- 
crafts, to  be  honest  is,  as  it  were,  the  prime  requi- 
site. A  man  may  have  ever  so  many  other  valuable 
qualities  for  his  particular  calling  —  knowledge, 
ability,  intellect,  quickness,  industry,  technical 
skill,'  but,  if  he  is  not  honest,  there  is  no  room 
and  no  chance  for  him  in  the  fierce  competition 
of  modern  existence.  However  able  he  mav  be, 
he  goes  at  last  to  the  wall  and  leaves  the  field 


162  THE  BEST  POLICY. 

free  and  open  to  his  often  less  intelligent  but 
more  stniiglitforvvard  and  trustworthy  competi- 
tors. 

Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  way  in  which 
this  prime  necessity  for  honest  dealing  between 
the  members  of  an  industrial  community  produces 
a  general  high  level  of  individual  honesty  than  to 
notice  the  mode  in  which  a  similar  feeling  is  en- 
gendered by  circumstances  even  among  the  mem- 
bers of  almost  savage  and  predatory  tribes.  In  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company's  territory  there  are  many 
places  where  the  fur-trade  of  the  company  is  not 
sufficiently  large  to  support  a  resident  store-keeper, 
and  where  there  are  absolutely  no  inhabitants  ex- 
cept the  thinly  scattered  hunting  Indians.  In 
such  spots  the  company  often  erects  a  store,  gen- 
erally a  large  shanty,  without  any  custodian  ;  and 
the  door  of  this  rude  building  is  secured  only 
against  the  intrusion  of  bears  or  panthers,  being 
carefully  fastened  from  outside  with  a  wooden  bar 
or  common  drop-latch.  Thus  any  person  who 
happens  to  pass  can  enter  it  at  any  time  and  help 
himself  to  whatever  he  requires.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
shop  without  a  shopkeeper.  Within  are  stored  all 
the  sup[)lies  that  an  Indian  is  likely  at  any  time 
to  need  —  blaidvcts,  clothing,  iirms,  powder,  shot, 
and  every  other  object  of  necessity  to  the  sur- 
rounding hunters.  A  tariff  of  proportionate 
values   is   hung   up   behind   the   door   in  simple 


THE  BEST  POLICY.  163 

picture-writing  —  so  many  skins  in  return  for 
a  gun,  so  many  for  a  blanket,  so  many  for  a 
flask  of  powder,  and  so  forth ;  and  the  rehitive 
worth  of  the  different  kinds  of  furs  is  also  regu- 
lated by  a  fixed  convention,  well  known  by  repute 
to  all  the  neighboring  Indians.  When  an  Indian 
in  tlie  district  requires  any  article  from  this  singular 
store,  he  enters  and  takes  for  himself  whatever  he 
wants,  leaving  behind  the  requisite  number  of 
skins  in  barter,  together  with  some  little  personal 
mark,  which  forms,  as  it  were,  his  crest  or  cogni- 
zance, so  tlutt  the  company  may  be  able  to  recog- 
nize the  name  and  standing  of  their  customer. 
This  arrangement  has  existed  for  many  years,  and 
in  no  case,  says  Mr.  Sandford  Fleming,  has  an  in- 
stance been  noted  of  the  stores  being  fraudulently 
entered,  or  of  the  least  dishonesty  taking  place  on 
the  part  of  the  Indians.  When  the  agent  comes 
to  visit  the  stores  twice  a  year,  he  invariably  finds 
everything  in  order,  and  the  proper  number  of 
skins  for  each  purchase  duly  stacked  in  the  middle 
of  the  shanty. 

How  is  it  that  such  mere  savages  have  attained 
so  higli  and  apparently  so  difficult  a  standard  of 
personal  honesty?  Clearly  because  they  all  feel 
strongly  the  obvious  truth  that  in  their  peculiar 
circumstances,  at  least,  honesty  is  decidedly  the 
best  policy.  If  in  any  one  case  an  Indian  were  to 
break  into  and  rob  the  store,  he  would  know  per- 


164      .  THE  BEST  POLICY. 

fectly  well  that  on  the  very  next  visit  of  the  agent 
that  particular  store  would  be  promptly  closed, 
and  he  would  in  future  suffer  all  the  disadvantages 
of  being  cut  off  entirely  from  European  traffic 
and  Euri/j  ?an  manufactures,  which  have  become 
to  him  al.i.ost  as  necessary  now  as  they  are  to 
ourselves.  Instead  of  warm  and  comfortable 
woollen  blankets,  he  would  have  in  future  to  con- 
tent himself  with  the  skins  of  beasts.  Instead  of 
a  good  gun,  powder,  and  shot,  he  would  have  in 
future  to  subsist  upon  the  precarious  returns  of 
the  chase  with  the  bow  and  arrow.  Instead  of 
wheaten  flour,  maize,  and  tobacco,  he  would  have 
in  future  to  go  back  again  to  the  miserable  roots, 
berries,  and  leaves  which  formed  a  large  part  of 
tlje  simple  food-stuffs  of  his  roaming  ancestors. 
Every  Indian  in  each  little  community,  therefore, 
feels  that  on  Ids  own  personal  honesty,  as  well 
as  on  that  of  all  his  fellows,  depends  the  continu- 
ance of  the  useful  system  whereby  he  and  his 
people  are  enabled  at  any  time  to  satisfy  their 
wants  in  the  utter  wilderness  with  almost  all  the 
ease  and  certainty  of  a  civilized  city,  with  its  nu- 
merous shops  and  busy  market-places.  Not  only, 
accordingly,  does  he  willingly  abstain  himself  from 
acting  dishonestly,  but  he  also  endeavors,  as  far 
as  in  him  lies,  to  enforce  honest  dealing  on  all  his 
neighbors  and  fellow-tribesmen.  The  sort  of  influ- 
ence thus  brought  to  bear  so  very  obviously  upon 


THE  BEST  POLICY.  165 

each  person  in  such  a  savage  tribe  is  also  brought 
to  bear  upon  all  civilized  people  in  our  own  com- 
munities, though  often  by  far  more  indirect  and 
roundabout  methods.  The  knowledge  that  hon- 
esty is  the  best  policy  for  everybody  all  round,  and 
that  dishonesty  is  hurtful  for  all  of  us  alike,  helps 
to  keep  the  less  scrupulous  from  falling  into  evil 
ways,  find  makes  the  more  scrupulous  all  the  more 
careful  in  not  encouraging  or  countenancing  in 
any  way  any  but  those  of  known  and  tried  personal 
probity. 


^ 


XV. 

THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

Every  nation  at  tlie  present  day  is  a  compound 
of  numberless  distinct  elements;  but  few  nations 
are  more  absolutely  compound,  more  closely  inter- 
mixed of  varying  races,  than  the  English  people 
and  its  offshoot,  the  American  race.  Even  if  we 
take  merely  the  well  known  historical  components 
of  the  population  in  England  proper,  omitting 
Ireland,  Scotland,  Wales,  and  Cornwall,  we  have 
an  extraordinary  conglomerate  of  the  most  diverse 
Celtic  and  Teutonic  elements.  As  Defoe  long  ago 
satirically  observed,  when  he  wished  to  cast  ridi- 
cule upon  the  supposed  purity  of  blood  in  certain 
sections  of  the  community, — 

**  With  easy  pains  you  can  distinguish 
Your  Saxon,  Norman,  Danish  English." 

The  real  fact  is,  of  course,  that  almost  every  indi- 
vidual in  our  existing  society  can  trace  his  descent 
in  one  line  or  the  other  to  Saxon,  Norman,  Dane, 
and  Celt  alike,  and  to  many  still  older  and  all  but 
forgotten  components  of  our  very  mixed  British 
Tiationality.      Each    of    us    has    necessarily   two 

106 


THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  167 

parents,  four  grandparents,  eiglit  great-grand- 
parents, sixteen  great-great-grandparents,  and  so 
on  ad  infinitum;  and  the  chances  of  any  one  sin- 
gle personage  being  able  to  make  out  a  i)ure 
Norman,  or  Saxon,  or  Danish  pedigree,  down  to 
the  tenth,  eleventh,  or  twelfth  generation,  may  be 
practicall}^  regarded  as  what  mathematicians  term 
a  vanishing  quantity.  Whenever  a  geneah)gy  is 
carefully  worked  out  in  the  ascending  order 
through  all  lines  alike,  it  is  almost  invariably 
found  that  a  few  generations  back  it  ramifies  out 
widely  into  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  em- 
braces elements  of  the  most  diverse  possible 
ethnological  origin  and  social  status. 

But  of  late  years  it  has  also  become  increas- 
ingly clear  that,  in  attempting  to  account  for  the 
various  race-elements  which  go  to  make  up  the 
existing  composition  of  any  particular  nation,  we 
have  to  take  into  consideration  not  only  the  well 
known  historical  factors,  but  also  the  less  ob- 
trusive but  far  more  deeply  persistent  prehistoric 
peoples  who  everywhere  occupied  the  soil  of  each 
country  before  the  advent  of  the  first  historical 
colonists.  Egypt,  for  example,  is  a  country 
which  from  all  time  has  been  constantly  overrun 
and  conquered  by  Persians,  Greeks,  Romans,  and 
Arabs,  who  have  formed  from  time  to  time  its 
upper  classes  and  governing  body ;  yet  to  this 
day  the  preponderating  portion  of  the  Egyptian 


168  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

population,  whether  Mohfimmedan  fellahs  or  Cop- 
tic Christians,  consists  essentially  of  the  original 
ancient  Egyptian  type,  persisting  still  as  the  main 
element,  in  spite  of  foreign  conquest  and  gradual 
intermixture  of  the  immigrants  with  the  natives. 
It  may  be  interesting,  therefore,  from  this  point 
of  view,  to  consider  briefly  the  various  races,  his- 
torical or  prehistoric,  which  are  known  to  have 
successively  occupied  the  soil  of  Britain,  and  to 
inquire  what  light  modern  research  has  thrown 
upon  the  parts  which  they  have  each  respectively 
borne  in  the  building-up  of  the  existing  composite 
British  people. 

The  very  earliest  inhabitants  of  what  is  now 
England,  known  as  yet  to  the  ken  of  science,  are 
the  extremely  antique  and  savage  folk  who  fash- 
ioned, the  rudely  chipped  flint  hatchets  found  in 
the  drift  or  river-gravel  and  the  somewhat  shape- 
lier rough  stone  arrow-heads  exumed  from  the 
solid  concrete  floors  of  the  limestone  caverns. 
But  these  most  venerable  of  all  ancient  Britons 
liave  left,  it  would  seem,  but  little  mark  upon  the 
existing  modern  British  people.  To  be  sure,  in 
one  sense  it  is  not  improbable  that  we  of  nine- 
teenth-century England  may  be  largely  or  even 
exclusively  descended  from  the  crouching,  dark- 
skinned,  Australian-like  savages  who  hunted  the 
mammoth  beside  the  banks  of  some  primeval  and 
forgotten  Thames,  or  who  fed  upon  the  flesh  of 


THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  1G9 

the  seal  and  the  reindeer  among  the  ice-encum- 
bered caves  of  preglacial  Yorkshire.  But,  if  so, 
the  enormous  lapse  of  time  which  has  intervened 
to  separate  lis  from  these  our  earliest  recognizable 
British  ancestors  has  produced  so  immense  a  mod- 
ification in  t\'pe  and  feature  as  to  render  us  practi- 
cally a  different  race  from  our  remote  progenitors. 
For  the  men  of  the  older  stone  age,  as  arclueologlsts 
call  the  very  early  barbarous  inhabitants  of  still 
Continental  Britain,  were  a  horde  of  exceedingly 
low  and  primitive  savages,  with  smaller  brains 
than  any  existing  group  of  the  human  family,  and 
with  traits  which  mark  them  out  as  inferior  even 
to  the  naked  Australian  black  fellows  of  our 
own  time.  All  the  evidence  we  yet  possess  goes 
to  show  that  these  primitive  people  were  driven 
southward  into  Mediterranean  Europe  by  the 
gradual  approach  of  very  cold  conditions  in  the 
area  of  Britain ;  and  therefore  we  have  compara- 
tively little  reason  to  suppose  that  their  blood  has 
left  any  distinct  traces  on  the  modern  population 
of  the  British  Isles. 

It  is  different,  however,  with  the  second  great 
group  of  people  who  are  known  to  liave  settled 
on  the  soil  of  England.  The  men  of  the  newer 
stone  age,  who  colonized  our  island  immediately 
after  the  return  of  warmer  and  more  genial  condi- 
tions in  Northern  Europe,  have  evidently  con- 
tributed no  small  proportion  of  their  blood  to  the 


170  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

mixed  Englislimen  of  the  present  clay.  Cultiva- 
tors and  herdsmen  where  their  predecessors  of  tlie 
older  stone  age  had  been  mere  liand-to-mouth 
liunting  savages,  these  oldest  of  existing  P2nglish- 
men  were  characterized  i)hysically  by  their  com- 
paratively dark  complexion,  black  liair,  deep 
brown  eyes,  and  long  or  boat-shaped  skulls  and 
foreheads.  It  was  they  who  raised  the  most 
ancient  among  the  barrows  or  tumuli  which  still 
cap  the  summits  of  our  chalk  downs  :  and  from  the 
chambered  stone  tombs  that  the  barrows  enclose 
we  have  recovered  not  only  the  polished  stone 
tomahawks,  the  amber  necklets,  the  hand-made 
pottery,  and  the  simple  ornaments  of  these  pri- 
meval Britons,  but  also  the  actual  bones  and 
skeletons  of  the  builders  themselves.  From  the 
physical  indications  thus  unmistakably  preserved 
for  us  we  know  the  constructors  of  the  chambered 
barrows  to  have  been  a  short,  squat,  and  thick-set 
people,  identical  in  type  with  the  so-called  black 
Celts  of  Scotland  and  Ireland,  and  with  the  darker 
inhabitants  of  Lincolnshire,  Yorkshire,  and  the 
Eastern  Counties.  Throughout  the  whole  of 
Britain  indeed  careful  investigation  arid  measure- 
ment of  skulls,  bones,  and  height,  as  well  as  ob- 
servations on  the  color  of  hair  and  eyes,  have 
united  to  prove  that  many  great  groups  of  people 
exist  here  and  there  in  isolated  colonies  belonging 
mainly  to   tliis  very   early  stone-age  blood.     Of 


THE  ENOLlsri  PKOPLE.  171 

course  it  is  not  meant  that  those  people  have  in- 
tentionally or  entirely  kept  \\\^  their  purity  of  race 
from  any  later  foreign  intermixture  across  so 
many  intervening  centuries;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
almost  certain  that  even  into  the  remotest  valleys 
or  peninsulas  every  successive  wave  of  population 
must  sooner  or  later  have  penetrated  in  some 
force,  and  have  gradually  amalgamated  with  tlie 
sedentary  population.  But  it  is  more  than  proba- 
ble, on  the  other  hand,  that  wherever  in  si)ecial 
districts,  and  more  particularly  in  the  country, 
a  short,  dark  type  of  humanity  prej)onderates, 
there  the  people  of  the  newer  stone  age  have  left 
their  mark  deeply  upon  the  blood  and  figure  of 
the  modern  inhabitants.  Newer  races  settled  in 
time  among  them,  conquered  them,  and  enslaved 
them,  turned  them  into  serfs,  and  slowly  mixed 
with  tliem  by  intermarriage;  but  the  primitive 
dark  ty[)e  asserts  itself  still  by  constant  inherit- 
ance, so  that  even  in  England  j^roper,  where  we 
ought  all  to  be  fair-haired  and  blue-eyed  Anglo- 
Saxons,  according  to  the  common  notion  of  the 
English  Conquest,  black  curly  locks  and  dark  eyes 
are  almost  or  quite  as  common  at  the  present  day 
as  the  true  Teutonic  flaxen  hair  and  cerulean  iris. 
Tiie  next  great  race  to  settle  in  England  was 
that  of  the  genuine  Aryan  Celts.  A  fair  Northern 
race,  coming  down  upon  all  Western  Europe  from 
the  direction  of  Russia,  the  Celts  seem    to  have 


172  THE  KNailSH  PEOPLE. 

overrun  England  at  a  very  early  date,  and  to  have 
conquered  and  enslaved  its  i)riuntive  dark  non- 
Aryan  inhabitants.  The  mixture  slowly  pro- 
duced by  the  amalgamation  of  the  two  formed  the 
Ancient  Hritons  of  the  days  of  Ctcsar  and  of  tlie 
Roman  conquerors.  At  that  period,  if  we  may 
trust  the  fragmentary  Roman  notices,  the  western 
lialf  of  Britain  was  peopled — as  it  still  is  —  by  a 
darker  and  more  S})anish-looking  type  of  men, 
like  the  modern  Cornish  and  the  Welsh  of 
Glamorgan  ;  while  in  tlie  southeast  a  some- 
what fairer  type  prevailed,  which  seemed  to  the 
swartliy  Italians  comparatively  flaxen-haired  and 
blue-eyed,  though  doubtless  it  possessed  these 
characteristics  in  a  less  degree  than  the  later 
Anglo-Saxon  invaders. 

The  Romans,  in  spite  of  their  political  greatness, 
can  have  left  but  little  mark  upon  the  blood  of 
England.  Though  the  Roman  occupation  lasted 
nearly  four  centuries,  though  Roman  roads  trav- 
ersed the  country  from  end  to  end,  though  Roman 
villas  studded  in  hundreds  the  fertile  uplands,  and 
though  Roman  legions  were  stationed  at  all  the 
great  strategic  posts  throughout  the  whole  of 
England,  yet  the  Romans  really  held  Britain 
much  as  we  ourselves  hold  India,  by  a  purely 
military  and  impeiial  domination.  If  the  English 
were  to  w'ithdraw  from  Hindostan  to-morrow,  the 
blood  of  that  great  heterogeneous  country  would 


THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  173 

lijinlly  be  affected  to  any  appreciable  degree  by 
tlie  hundred  years  of  the  English  occupation.  It 
was  much  tlie  same,  no  doubt,  with  Britain.  The 
so-called  Roman  soldiers  stationed  in  the  country 
were  really  recruited  in  Germany,  Hungary, 
Spain,  or  Africa;  and,  though  they  may,  of  course, 
have  mingled  a  little  with  the  people  of  York  or 
Chester,  of  Lincoln  and  of  London  —  the  great 
military  and  commercial  posts  —  they  cannot  to 
any  appreciable  extent  have  influenced  the  physi- 
cal features  of  the  population  of  Britain  generally. 
But,  when  the  Roman  forces  were  witlidrawn, 
the  Teutons  of  the  North,  first  as  Anglo-Saxons 
and  then  as  Danes,  began  to  pour  down  upon  the 
defenceless  provinces.  Like  their  predecessors, 
the  Celts,  the  Teutons  were  also  members  of  the 
great  Aryan  family  of  nations  —  that  family 
wliich  has  spread  itself  from  Norway  to  India  and 
from  Spain  to  Russia,  and  which  now  threatens 
to  swallow  up  under  its  own  dominion  all  the  rest 
of  the  habitable  globe.  It  wiis  formerly  usual  to 
suppose  that  the  Aryans  had  spread  westward 
from  Central  Asia  into  the  Russian  plain  and  the 
remainder  of  Europe  ;  but  a  Scandinavian  scholar, 
Penka,  has  lately  shown  conclusive  reasons  for 
believing  that  they  really  started  rather  from  the 
north  and  moved  southward  and  eastward,  move- 
ments of  conquering  hordes  being  always  from 
the    colder,    ruggeder,    and    more    mountainous 


174  THE  ENGLISH  rEOPLE. 

regions  in  the  direction  of  warmer,  more  fertile, 
and  wealthier  [)lains.  Tlie  Anglo-Saxons,  or  true 
English,  Avho  thus  settled  after  the  departure  of 
the  Konians  in  the  country  now  called,  jifter  their 
name,  England,  did  not,  it  is  probable,  extermi- 
nate or  drive  out  entirely  the  earlier  and  darker 
half-Celtic  population.  Had  they  done  so,  the 
people  of  England  at  the  ])resent  day  would  be, 
without  exce[)tion,  as  light-haired  and  blue-eyed 
as  in  the  fairest  parts  C)f  Norway  and  Sweden. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  modern  England  dark 
curly  hair  and  black  or  blackish  eyes  are  to  be 
found  in  quite  half  of  the  existing  })opulation. 
Into  Wales  and  Cornwall  the  conquering  English 
never  really  j)enetrated  in  force  at  all,  and  the 
population  in  those  two  districts  still  consists 
almost  entirely  of  the  mixed  dark  race  which  we 
now  commonly  know  as  Celtic,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  lighter  Teutonic  Anglo-Saxon  type. 
Cumberland,  Westmoreland,  and  the  greater  part 
of  Lancashire,  though  afterwards  partially  settled 
by  the  Northmen,  similarly  escaped  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  colonization.  In  Devon,  Somerset,  and 
Dorset,  as  \\e\\  as  along  the  Welsh  border  in 
Hertfordshire,  Worcestershire,  Shropshire,  and 
Cheshire,  tho  invading  English  appear  to  have 
formed  a  mere  sprinkling  of  a  superior  class 
among  a  large  mass  of  subject  or  servile  Welsh 
cultivators.     And   even   in   the  most  thoroughly 


THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  175 

Teutonized  counties  of  Britain,  such  as  Kent, 
Sussex,  Lincolnshire,  and  Yoi'ksliire,  it  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  meet  among  the  population  with  ahundant 
traces  of  a  yet  unswamped  dark  element.  Every- 
"where,  in  fact  —  even  in  the  most  English  por- 
tions of  England  —  a  British  race  which  is  not 
English  survives  and  flourishes  to  our  own  day  in 
considerahle  nund)ers. 

The  later  invasions  hardly  did  much  to  disturb 
the  general  balance  of  our  poj)ulation  thus  roughly 
indicated.  Danes  and  Nt)rmans  were  both  essen- 
tially Teutonic  at  bottom  ;  and  both  settled  for 
the  most  part  in  districts  which  had  already  been 
colonized  by  English  and  Saxons.  Indeed,  the 
only  great  change  in  this  respect  which  has  come 
over  the  ethnography  of  England  in  later  times 
has  been  brought  about  by  a  peaceful  return-wave 
of  the  darker  so-called  Celtic  race  upon  the  lighter 
Teutonic  districts  in  the  southern  and  eastern 
half  of  our  islands.  Welshmen,  lonjx  driven  l>ack- 
ward  by  the  English  arms,  have  now  {juietly 
crossed  the  border  in  their  turn,  and  settled  bv 
the  thousand  in  Liverpool,  Birmingham,  Ahmches- 
ter,  and  Lon(h)n.  Highland  Scots  have  descended 
in  force  upon  Edinburgh  and  (jllasgow;  while  not 
a  few  of  tiieiM  may  be  found  scattered  freely  here 
and  there  even  in  the  most  southern  I'.iiglish  cities. 
Cornishmen,  Devonians,  and  otl.'cr  West-Country- 
men,  have    swamped    into    Soutliampton,    Ports- 


176  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

mouth,  Chatham,  Brighton,  and  tlie  whole  popu- 
lous metropolitan  area.  As  for  the  Iiisii,  they  are 
numerous  everywhere,  but  especially  in  Bristol, 
London,  Liverpool,  Glasgow,  Manchester,  and 
Shellield.  The  natural  cousequenee  of  this  slow 
and  peaceful  return-wave  of  the  conquered  Celt 
uprui  the  CQn(piering  Saxon  has  been  of  course 
largely  to  increase  the  dark  aboriginal  element  in 
our  population  and  to  swamp  the  light  and  purely 
Aryan  element.  Moreover,  the  C'elt  —  or,  in 
other  words,  tiie  mixed  dark  race  —  increases  and 
multiplies  much  faster  than  his  fair  brother,  th«i 
Saxon  ;  so  that  at  the  present  day  there  can  ht 
little  doubt  that  the  dark  type  on  the  whole  pre- 
douiinates  over  the  fair,  taking  one  part  of  the 
countrv  witli  another  throuijhout  the  whole  of  the 
British  Islands.  It  may  be  added  that  close  ob- 
servation among  distinguished  meii  of  the  present 
day  does  not  by  an}'  means  bear  out  the  common 
but  probably  groundless  belief  in  the  mental  su- 
periority of  the  lighter  type. 


XVI. 

BIG  AND   LITTLE. 

All  our  ideas,  say  the  philosopliors,  are  rela- 
tive;  it  is  irnj)()ssil)le  to  state  witli  absolute  truth 
of  anythinc^  in  heaven  or  earth  that  it  is  really  just 
thus  and  thus  in  itself,  and  not  otherwise.  Every- 
thing is  what  it  is  only  relatively  to  something 
else,  not  absolutely  and  of  its  own  inner  essence. 
Take,  for  example,  the  question  of  direction.  At 
first  sight  it  might  seem  easy  enough  to  decide 
■whether  we  are  going  eastward  or  westward  ;  but 
in  fact  the  (luestion  is  a  very  com})licate(l  one.  A 
man  is  walking,  to  employ  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's 
admirable  illustration,  upon  the  deck  of  a  steamer, 
outward  bound,  suppose  we  say,  from  Liverpool 
to  Halifax.  Relatively,  therefore,  to  the  other 
l)eof)le  and  objects  at  rest  on  the  vessel,  when  he 
walks  from  bow  to  stern,  he  is  travelling  east- 
ward, and  when  he  walks  from  aft  forward  lie  is 
travelling  distinctly  and  unmistakably  to  the 
west.  But  the  ship,  too,  with  all  that  is  on  it,  is 
moving  in  a  right  line  westward  ;  and  so,  even 
when  he  seems  to  be  going  east,  lie  is  really  being 
far  more  rapidly  carried,  at  the  rate  of  nineteen 
knots  an  hour,  in  the  o]ti)osite  direction.     That  is 

177 


178  BIG  AND  LITTLE. 

to  say,  lie  is  so  carried  relatively  once  more  to  tlie 
two  continents  of  Europe  and  America,  getting 
every  moment  farther  from  the  one  and  nearer 
and  nearer  still  to  the  other.  Yet  in  reality,  at 
that  very  same  second  of  time,  the  earth,  in  its 
daily  revolution,  is  whirling  him  ever  so  much 
farther  from  west  to  east ;  so  that,  when  the  ship 
appears  to  be  moving  westward,  it,  with  tlie  ocean 
and  the  continents  around  it,  is  actually  being  hur- 
ried with  amazing  speed  in  the  contrary  direction, 
eastward  and  eastward.  Once  more,  the  entire 
earth  itself  is  at  the  same  instant  spinning  with 
still  vaster  haste  in  a  wide  circle  through  si)ace 
around  the  sun  ;  so  that  the  real  motion  of  the 
man  on  the  ship  is  one  compounded  of  his  own 
movements,  the  movements  of  the  vessel,  tlie 
daily  rotation  of  the  earth  on  its  axis,  and  the 
annual  cycle  of  our  planet  around  its  primary  the 
sun  in  a  great  orbit.  Nor  is  this  all.  Tlie  move- 
ment so  compounded,  again,  is  relative  only  to 
the  solar  S3^stem ;  while  the  whole  S(jlar  S3'stem 
itself  en  bloc,  sun,  and  earth,  und  ship,  and  passen- 
ger together,  is  all  careering  wildly  through  illim- 
itable space  towards  a  particular  star  in  the 
constellation  Hercules.  And  whither  we  are  all 
going  in  the  lump,  system,  and  star,  and  constel- 
lation, and  galaxy,  no  astronomer  has  ever  yet 
been  able,  with  any  a2)proach  to  certainty,  to 
determine. 


BIG  AND  LITTLE.  179 

In  nothing  is  this  infinite  relativity  of  hunian 
ideas  more  clearly  or  impressively  visible  than 
in  onr  common  very  vague  conceptions  of  big 
and  little.  St.  Paul's  ajtpears  to  us  from 
most  points  of  view  a  very  large  and  imposing 
building,  even  if  we  frankly  admit  its  architectural 
feebleness  and  its  commonplace  construction.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  isle  of  Portland,  in  Dorset- 
shire, appears  to  ns  but  a  small  place,  a  little 
peninsula  of  solid  rock,  on  the  central  knoll  of 
which  a  man  can  stand  and  look  n[)on  the  sea  and. 
the  clifTs  on  every  side  close  around  him.  Never- 
theless, St.  Paul's  was  built  of  Portland  stone, 
and  so  were  half  the  other  largest  buildings  in 
London;  and  for  two  hundred  years  the  unwea- 
ried quarrymen  have  gone  on  pegging  away  with- 
out stop[)ing  at  the  narrow  area  of  that  tiny 
island,  removing  huge  slabs  —  observe,  we  call 
them  huge  —  for  the  construction  of  innumerable 
"gigantic"  and  "imposing"  fa9ades,  without  so 
much  as  visibly  lowering  the  general  surface  of  a 
few  acres  in  the  centre  of  Portland.  St.  Paul's 
is  big,  because  we  measure  it  against  other  and 
smaller  human  edifices ;  the  blocks  are  huge,  be- 
cause we  measure  them  against  bricks  or  building- 
stones  of  human  fashioning;  but  Portland  is 
small,  because  we  measure  it  not  against  any 
puny  human  object,  but  against  Wight,  or  Arran, 
or  England  itself. 


180  BIG  AND  LITTLE. 

Take,  once  more,  the  utter  impossibility  of  truly 
realizing  to  our  own  minds  even  very  minor  big- 
nesses of  size  in  external  nature.  Look  at  England 
itself!  A  single  county,  when  we  come  to  walk 
or  ride  or  drive  through  it  from  end  to  end,  is 
larger  far  than  we  can  really  picture  to  ourselves 
in  our  mental  imaginings.  The  bicyclist  who  has 
gone  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Surrey 
or  Sussex  —  to  mention  the  counties  most  familiar 
as  a  rule  to  the  London  amateur  —  knows  that 
even  those  fractions  of  England  are  too  big  to 
be  adequately  represented  in  a  single  inclusive  act 
of  memory  or  imagination.  How,  then,  can  any 
one  of  us  pretend  that  we  have  really  and  truly 
a  genuine  conception  of  the  relative  bigness  of  all 
England?  We  know  it  in  fact  merely  by  rough 
ideas  derived  from  railway-travelling ;  it  took  us 
so  many  hours  to  go  by  train  from  London  to 
Penzance,  and  so  many  more  to  drive  by  coach 
from  the  Penzance  Hotel  to  the  Land's  End.  We 
were  so  long  in  going  from  Carlisle  to  Dover,  and 
so  long  in  getting  from  Carnarvon  to  Yarmouth. 
Li  this  way  we  fiame  symbolically  to  ourselves 
some  rough  idea  of  the  size  of  our  native  country, 
not,  indeed,  as  visible  at  a  single  inclusive  bird's- 
eye  vievtr,  but  as  traversable  by  rail,  or  as  measur- 
able by  means  of  the  time  recjuired  for  transit 
across  it.  From  this  point  of  view,  no  doubt, 
railways   have    really    made    the    ideal    England 


BIO  AND  LITTLE.  181 

far  smaller  tKan  it  used  once  to  be,  bv  reduciiif; 
the  time  needed  to  get  over  it  from  sen  to  s(»a. 
As  we  justly  say,  tliey  liave  brought  London 
several  hours  nearer  to  York  or  to  Exeter.  But, 
on  the  other  liand,  it  can  hardly  be  denied  tliat 
they  have  given  us  all  a  far  less  true  idea  of  the 
relative  bigness  of  the  whole  country,  compared 
to  the  part  of  it  we  know  personally,  by  dimin- 
ishing the  nund)er  of  interme<liate  j)oints,  and 
especially  by  getting  rid  of  those  hilltt)p  views 
which  in  coaching  times  enabled  one  to  measure 
with  com[)arative  accuracy  the  actual  extent  of 
the  distance  traversed. 

Now  let  us  turn  for  a  moment  from  the  area  of 
England  to  the  greater  area  of  the  rest  of  Europe. 
England  and  Wales  themselves  make  up  less  than 
one-half  the  surface  of  the  British  Isles,  which  we 
may  take,  for  convenience  sake,  as  a  unit  of  mea- 
surement ;  though  nobody  can  pretend  that  he 
knows  them  all  so  well,  from  Cape  Clear  to  the 
North  Foreland,  from  John  o'  Groat's  to  the 
Lizard  Point,  as  to  be  able  to  frame  a  definite 
picture  of  their  actual  bigness.  Keally,  when  we 
compare  Britain  with  other  countries,  we  do  not 
even  pretend  to  ourselves  to  compare  the  genuine 
areas ;  we  think  only  of  the  relative  space  occu- 
pied by  the  representation  of  each  of  them  on  a 
tiny  map.  Any  man  who  has  once  traversed 
England   by   rail,   from    Berwick  to  Dover,  and 


182  BIG  AND  LITTLE. 

Franco  hy  rail,  from  Marseilles  to  Calais,  will 
feel  iininediately  how  hopeless  is  the  attempt  truly 
to  com})are  their  respective  areas,  otherwise  than 
as  represented  by  railway  time-tal)les,  or  by 
l)ainted  figures  on  a  piece  of  paper.  Now,  France 
alone  is  nearly  half  as  big  again  as  all  Britain, 
and  the  German  Empire,  fairly  divided  out,  would 
just  split  up  into  three  Englands  and  three 
Waleses.  Russia  in  Europe,  with  Poland  and 
Finland,  equals  no  less  than  thirty  Englands,  or 
over  fifteen  British  Isles;  and  Europe  as  a  whole 
is  nearly  twice  as  big  as  all  Russia.  Can  anybody 
pretend  that  he  can  i)icture  to  himself,  however 
inadequately,  the  real  expanse  of  that  vast  area  ? 
Imajxine  no  less  than  sixtv  countries  as  bicj  as  all 
England  and  Wales,  of  which  smaller  unit  most 
of  us  have  personally  seen  but  a  few  counties  ! 
We  say,  imagine  it;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is 
quite  uninuiginable ;  we  can  only  symbolically 
represent  to  ourselves  a  far  smaller  and  simpler 
stretch  of  country. 

Again,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  Europe,  as  a 
whole,  huge  as  it  seems,  is  but  a  tiny  fraction  of 
the  habitable  land,  the  smallest  and  narrowest 
of  the  great  continents.  The  Indian  possessions 
of  Britain,  alone,  are  thirteen  times  as  big  as 
Britain,  or  twenty-six  times  as  big  as  England ; 
and  the  population  is  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  millions,  as  against  only  thirty-six  millions 


BIQ  AND   LITTLE.  183 

in  the  British  Isles.  Tlie  Tlnilocl  States  are 
lar(,'er  still  —  r()ii<^lily  spoakiiifj^,  iibout  thirty  times 
as  big  as  Britain,  or  sixty  times  as  big  as  Kng- 
hind  and  Wales.  Yet  the  United  States  are 
only  a  fraction  of  the  land  surface  of  all  America, 
and  America  itself  but  a  fraction  of  the  land  sur- 
face of  the  entire  globe.  As  to  the  oceans,  thej'' 
are  far  bigger  than  even  the  continents.  Scarcely 
more  than  one-quarter  of  the  world  consists  of 
dryland;  nearly  three-quarters  consist  of  water. 
Against  some  small  jjortion  of  this  we  are  able  to 
measure  ourselves  with  rough  accuracy.  The 
route  from  England  to  America,  on  a  lirst-class 
passenger-steamer,  requires  on  the  average  an 
eight  days'  voyage.  During  all  those  eight  days 
and  nights,  whether  we  sit  on  deck  or  lie  asleep 
in  our  berths,  the  vessel  is  moving  steadily  for- 
ward through  the  rushing  water  at  the  rate  of 
seventeen  or  eighteen  miles  an  hour.  Everj' 
morning  we  start  a[)parently  in  the  middle  of  the 
ocean  ;  every  night  we  find  ourselves,  so  far  as 
the  eye  can  judge,  in  exactly  the  same  spot  as 
where  we  started.  But  all  the  time  we  are 
steadily  progressing  across  that  vast  and  trackless 
waste  of  waters.  Nothing  else  perhaps  can  ever 
give  one  such  a  vivid  idea  of  the  expanse  of  our 
globe  as  such  a  long  ocean  voyage.  Yet  from 
Queenstown  to  New  York  is  but  a  tiny  fraction  of 
the  distance  round  the  whole  world,  scarcely  more 


184  BIG  AND  LITTLE. 

than  one-tentli  part  of  the  entire  circumference  of 
the  earth  at  the  eqir'^^r.  It  is  (luite  imjxjssible 
for  us  really  to  {)ictui  *  to  ourselves  the  world  on 
wliich  we  live  as  a  solid  globe  of  its  true  size  and 
comparative  dimensions  to  other  known  bodies. 
When  we  try  to  do  so,  we  deceive  ourselves,  and 
think  only  of  a  small  ball,  sufficiently  little  to  be 
seen  almost  JiU  round  at  once,  and  no  more  com- 
parable to  the  actual  planet  than  a  grain  of  sand 
is  comparable  to  a  county  of  England. 

If  it  is  thus  impossible  for  us  to  figure  to  our- 
selves our  own  world  even,  how  infinitely  more 
impossible  is  it  for  us  to  figure  to  ourselves  the 
sun,  the  system,  and  the  galaxy  generally  I  St. 
Paul's  is  big,  but  London  is  bigger;  an  English 
county  is  beyond  our  mental  grasp,  but  England 
itself  is  still  more  infinitel}''  beyond  it;  yet  Eng- 
land, is  only  an  atom  in  Europe,  Europe  in  the 
continents,  and  the  continents  themselves  in  the 
world  that  contains  them.  Then  the  world  itself, 
that  vast  unit,  so  huge  that  we  cannot  even  pre- 
tend to  picture  its  greatness  mentally  to  ourselves? 
becomes  far  too  tiny  for  a  useful  standard  when 
we  come  to  consider  the  infinities  about  us.  As 
a  planet  even,  the  world  sinks  into  utter  insig- 
nificance beside  its  giant  neighbors  Jupiter  and 
Saturn.  It  would  take  nearly  thirteen  hundred 
worlds  as  big  as  our  own  to  make  up  an  earth  of 
the  same  size  as  Jupiter.     We  cannot  conceive  of 


BIQ  AND  LITTLE.  185 

our  own  world  as  a  wliole,  of  conrso ;  but  wo 
may  i)eilia[)S  make  tlio  i)r()[)()rtioiis  conceivable  if 
we  think  first  of  the  earth  as  a  pea,  and  then  of 
Jupiter  as  equivalent  to  thirteen  InindreHl  such 
rolled  together.  Saturn,  once  more,  though  not 
by  any  means  so  big  as  Jupiter,  is  about  seven 
liundred  and  fifty  times  as  large  as  the  earth. 
These  of  course  are  very  big  planets,  and  in  them- 
selves they  might  fairly  be  considered  nothing 
less  than  positively  gigantic.  But,  viewed  l)y  the 
standard  of  the  sun,  their  ruler,  they  dwindle 
at  once  into  mere  babies.  Jupiter  is  thirteen 
hundred  times  as  big  as  the  earth,  but  the  sun 
is  one  million  three  hundred  and  eighty-four  thou- 
sand times  as  big ;  in  other  words,  it  would  take 
more  than  a  million  and  a  quarter  bodies  as  big  as 
our  world  to  compose  a  body  as  big  as  the  sun. 
Surely  here,  we  may  well  supjjose,  we  have 
reached  the  very  topmost  summit  of  bigness. 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  Com})ared  to  the  earth,  the  sun 
is  indeed  inconceivably  vast ;  but,  compared  to 
the  other  fixed  stars  about  him,  he  is  in  all  prob- 
ability the  merest  pigmy.  We  cannot  accurately 
measure  the  stars  as  we  can  measure  the  planets, 
but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  star  called 
Alpha,  in  the  constellation  of  the  Centaur  (the 
nearest  one  to  our  own  system),  is  nearly  two  and 
a  half  times  as  big  as  the  sun,  and  that  Sirius,  the 
brightest  star  known  to  us,  is  three  hundred  and 


186  BIQ  AND  LITTLE. 

ninety-three  times  as  bij^.  As  lliere  are  a  tliou- 
8Jiii(l  million  distinct  stjirs  within  tlie  range  of 
tlie  best  telesc«>j)es,  and  as  among  all  these  our 
own  sun  is  but  an  insignificant  tliird-rate  unit,  it 
may  well  be  believed  how  inconceivably  vast  are 
the  abysses  of  space  with  which  the  astronomer 
has  to  deal. 

On  the  otlier  hand,  when  we  come  to  consider 
the  infinitely  little,  we  are  met  by  almost  equally 
inconceivable  gradations  of  successive  minuteness. 
An  elephant  usually  passes  for  a  big  animal, 
though,  considered  si<le  b}-  side  with  the  gigantic 
realities  we  have  just  been  examining,  he  may  be 
regarded  of  course  as  a  tiny  speck  in  a  lost  corner 
of  the  universe.  On  the  other  hand,  a  gnat  is 
ordinarily  looked  upon  as  a  very  small  and  insig- 
nificant creature;  and  yet  there  are  myriads  of 
creatures  tinier  still,  compared  to  which  the  gnat 
himself  is  as  big,  we  do  not  say  as  the  ele])hant, 
but  as  a  whole  broad  English  county.  If  one 
takes  a  little  hay,  and  soaks  it  in  water  for  a  few 
hours,  a  drop  of  the  infusion  placed  under  a 
microscope  will  swarm  with  tiny  creatures  of 
jelly-like  aj)pearance,  darting  about  with  incon- 
ceivable rapitlity,  and  every  one  of  them  quite  as 
alive  to  all  outer  show  as  the  elejjhant  himself. 
Yet  twenty  thousand  of  them  put  in  a  circle 
would  not  more  than  fill  up  the  letter  o  in  the 
type  with  which  this  essay  is  printed.      Between 


BIQ  AND  LITTLE.  187 

these  intensely  minute  microscopical  creatures 
and  ourselves  or  the  elephant  every  intermediate 
stage  exists,  plants  and  animals  shading  oiT  in 
size  to  practically  illimitable  extents,  from  tlie 
whale  and  the  oak-tree  down  to  the  inlinitesinuil 
objects  which  can  hardly  be  distinguished  by  the 
acntest  eye  with  the  very  highest  powers  of  the 
best  microscopes. 

Time  affords  us  equal  vistas  of  infinite  dura- 
tion and  of  infinitesimal  subdivision.  Our  little 
luunan  life,  our  days  and  years,  give  us  indeed  no 
l)roper  standard  for  measuring  the  vast  past  ex- 
tent of  geolijgical  ages.  A  man's  utmost  span, 
even  in  cases  like  those  of  Sir  Moses  Montefiore 
and  ]\I.  Chevreul  the  chemist,  barely  exceeds  a 
hundred  years.  But  the  glacial  epoch,  the  very 
newest  of  geological  dates,  lies  behind  us  (accord- 
ing to  Doctor  CroU's  calculations)  at  a  distance  of 
two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  winters.  Man 
is  now  known  to  have  existed  on  the  earth  for  at 
least  that  very  lengthy  period,  and  in  all  proba- 
bility for  much  longer.  But  before  the  glacial 
epoch  began  came  the  far  longer  pliocene  age  ; 
and  before  that  the  yet  longer  miocene ;  and 
before  that  again  the  still  more  extended  eocene. 
All  these  were  as  mere  single  days  in  a  long  year 
comi)arcd  with  the  vast  unmeasured  extent  of  the 
secondary  age  ;  and  the  secondary  age  itself  was 
but  a  tiny  fraction  of  the  still  more  illimitable 
primary  period.     Thus  in  time,  as  in  space,  the 


188  BIQ  AND  LITTLE. 

vistas  we  gain  down  tlie  remoter  abysses  are 
utterly  unrtNiliziihlo  in  terms  «)f  any  ordinary 
human  Ktaudanl.  Yet,  when  we  come  tf>  look  at 
the  matter  the  opposite  way,  we  see  that  what 
seems  to  us  an  indivisible  second,  the  swing  of  a 
petidulum,  is  really  a  lapse  of  time  suflicient  for 
many  separate  actions  to  take  place  many  hundred 
or  even  thousand  times  over.  A  gnat's  wings 
vibrate  one  thousand  three  hundred  times  in  a 
second ;  the  note  C  in  the  mid<lle  octave  of  an 
ordinary  piano  vibrates  five  liundred  and  twenty- 
eight  times  in  a  second  ;  the  note  A  in  the  highest 
octave  vibrates  three  thousand  four  hundred  and 
eighty  times  in  the  same  interval.  Consider  that 
each  one  of  all  these  vibrations  must  itself  occupy 
in  reality  a  definite  and  measurable  space  of  time, 
and  it  will  be  clear  at  once  liow  comparatively 
long  a  period  is  that  required  for  the  utterance 
even  of  the  prov(;ibial  name  of  "Jack  llobinson.** 
But  this  is  nothing.  The  light-waves  needed  to 
produce  red  lights  oscillate  four  hundred  and 
seventy-seven  billion  times  a  second;  those  wiiich 
yield  the  color  violet  have  six  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  billion  oscillations  in  the  same  time.  After 
this,  how  can  we  deny  that  big  and  little  are  all 
mere  matters  of  human  comparison?  Nothing  is 
long  or  short,  small  or  great,  in  its  own  essence  ; 
it  is  so  only  in  relation  to  something  else,  from  the 
infinitely  vast  to  the  infinitesimally  tiny,  from  the 
illimitable  galaxy  to  the  microscopic  atom. 


XVII. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWING. 

When  a  little  dog  sees  a  big  dog  advancing 
towards  him  in  a  threatening  attitude,  he  not 
infre(piently  throws  himself  submissively  down 
upon  the  ground,  rolls  on  his  back  with  obtrusive 
humility,  fawns  and  grovels  before  his  possible 
enemy,  and  seems  to  say,  with  all  the  eloquent 
voice  of  canine  pantomime,  "  You  needn't  attfick 
me,  great  sir.  I  am  beaten  already.  I  am  your 
very  obedient  humble  servant.  Let  me  alone, 
you  mighty  conqueror,  and  go  and  fight  tiie  other 
bad  dogs  who  won't  acknowledge  jour  obvious 
superiority  as  readily  as  I  do.'*  At  first  sight 
there  would  seem  to  be  but  little  connection 
between  this  familiar  action  of  the  small  dog 
before  his  poweiful  neighbor  and  the  human  cere- 
mony of  bowing  and  courtesying.  And  yet,  as 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  acutely  remarked,  the 
two  things  are  in  their  remote  origin  practically 
identical ;  the  one  springs  at  first  from  exactly 
the  same  instinct  as  the  other.  To  bow  to  a  man 
is  even  now  to  some  extent  a  mark  of  respect  or 
an  acknowledgment  of  his  official  or  social  superi- 

189 


190  THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWINO. 

ority ;  and  once  upon  a  time  it  was  far  more  —  it 
was  a  tribute  of  submission  and  an  act  of  obei- 
sance, a  deliberate  prostration  of  the  slave  or  ca[)- 
tive  at  the  feet  of  a  master,  a  sovereign,  or  a 
conqueror.  Many  of  our  ordinary  little  modern 
ceremonial  observances  in  the  common  etiquette 
of  every-day  intercourse  similarly  descend  to  us 
from  a  remote  savage  ancestry,  and  still  bear 
upon  their  very  faces  no  slight  reminiscences  of 
their  barbaric  origin.  Among  them  not  the  least 
is  thQ  practice  of  bowing,  which  at  present  de- 
notes no  more  than  the  customary  politeness  of 
men  to  women,  or  in  a  less  degree  of  youth  to 
age  and  of  the  ordinary  run  of  society  to  excep- 
tional rank,  benevolence,  or  intellect,  but  which 
once  had  a  far  mrre  servile  meaning,  and  consisted 
of  a  dee])er  bodily  obeisance. 

In  the  East,  where  polite  ceremonial  has  always 
been  carried  to  the  furthest  extreme,  we  see  the 
best  evidence  of  the  origin  of  bowing  in  pure 
physical  savage  ju'ostration.  There  the  servant 
salaams  humbly  before  his  master,  and  the  subject 
tiirows  himself,  not  figuratively,  but  literally,  at 
the  foot  of  the  throne,  for  liis  su])erior  to  behold 
his  absolute  submissiveness.  When  we  go  still 
lower  down  to  pure  savages,  the  original  meaning 
of  these  bodily  obeisances,  and  their  close  con- 
nectiou  with  the  humble  demeanor  of  the  little 
dog  before  his  aggressor,  become  still  more  clear, 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWING.  191 

evident,  and  indisputable.  Tlie  noble  red  men 
of  the  West,  especially  among  the  lower  and 
more  degraded  tribes,  if  suddenly  overtaken  alone 
by  a  body  of  white  men,  crouch  upon  the  ground 
and  liold  down  their  lieads,  as  if  inviting  the  new- 
comers to  strike  and  kill  them.  Like  the  small 
dog  at  the  ai)proach  of  the  l)ig  mastiff,  they  seem 
to  say,  "We  will  not  resist  you.  We  are  your 
inoffensive  slaves.  Do  as  you  will  with  us.  We 
expect  to  be  killed  and  eaten  immediately."  The 
South  Africans  in  similar  circumstances  throw 
themselves  down  on  the  ground  upon  their  backs, 
grovel  in  the  dust,  and  slap  their  thighs  violently 
with  their  open  palms,  to  show  that  they  have  no 
weapons  or  arms  of  any  sort  concealed  anywhere 
about  them.  It  is  from  this  primitive  savage  sub- 
stitute for  a  flag  of  truce  that  the  whole  idea  of 
bowing  and  scraping  has  been  gradually  devel- 
oped with  the  rise  of  humanity.  Sometimes, 
indeed,  the  notion  of  abject  submission  is  even 
more  graphically  and  humbly  exi)ressed.  In  the 
South  Sea  Island  and  in  parts  of  Africa,  the  com- 
mon people  throw  themselves  down  on  the  road 
before  their  chiefs,  and  put  their  necks  beneath 
the  great  men's  feet.  In  the  East,  from  time 
innnemorial,  the  conqueror  has  always  thus  sym- 
bolically shown  the  degradation  of  the  con- 
quered. In  the  Assyrian  sculptures,  the  king  is 
represented  setting  his  foot  upon  the  neck  of  cap- 


192  THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWINO. 

tive  princes;  and  the  phrase  derived  from  this 
ancient  practice  has  passed,  like  so  many  other 
phrases  derived  from  obsolete  ideas,  into  the  com- 
mon stock  of  our  modern  languages.  That  the 
foeman's  heel  is  on  our  necks,  or  that  the  rich 
man  puts  his  foot  upon  the  neck  of  the  poor,  is 
even  now  a  familiar  trope  of  poi)ular  oratory. 

From  throwing  yourself  flat  on  your  face  upon 
the  earth  to  bowing  low  or  salaaming,  after  the 
fashion  of  Oriental  peoples,  is  a  very  easy  and 
natural  transition.  It  is,  as  it  were,  an  exjjressioii 
of  readiness  and  willingness  to  grovel.  In  every- 
day life,  as  soon  as  men  begin  to  wear  clothes,  it 
is  inconvenient  absolutely  to  fall  on  the  face, 
especially  out-of-doors;  the  dust  and  mud  are 
highly  detrimental  to  the  personal  ap[)earance  in 
such  circumstances.  So  in  time,  and  among  more 
civilized  people,  the  ceremonial  abasement  gave 
way  slowly  to  a  sort  of  shortened  and  abridged 
edition,  an  incipient  obeisance  or  apology  for  a 
prostration,  the  bow  or  salaam  in  its  full  form,  as 
indulged  in  by  Hindoos,  Egyptians,  and  Persians. 
Knocking  ^ne's  head  against  the  ground,  as  is  still 
done  in  China,  is  a  yet  profounder  mode  of  cur- 
tailed abcisement;  it  does  not  go  quite  so  far  as 
the  actual  prostration  of  the  body  in  the  dust,  but 
it  is  more  suggestively  humble,  and  savors  more 
of  complete  and  utter  submission  than  even 
the  low  bow  of  East  Indian  servants.     Another 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWING.  198 

form  of  the  ceremonial  symbolism  of  subjection  is 
to  fall  upon  the  knees;  and  from  one  of  these 
forms  we  get  our  modern  bow,  while  from  the 
other  we  get  the  female  courtesy.  Courtesying  is, 
as  it  were,  a  kind  of  incomplete  kneeling,  a  motion 
made  as  if  in  the  direction  of  falling  down  on  the 
knees  before  a  lord  and  master,  supposed  to  be 
peculiarly  ai)propriate  to  the  weaker  vessel.  It 
stands  to  the  ceremonial  kneeling  of  Japanese  and 
Eastern  servants  much  as  touching  the  hat  or 
raising  one  hand  gingerly  to  the  brim  stands  to 
the  more  deliberate  and  formal  salutation  we  give 
to  ladies,  or  as  a  friendly  nod  or  a  master's  slight 
inclination  of  recognition  stands  to  the  deferential 
bow  of  a  servant  or  inferior.  Scraping  among 
men,  seen  even  now  among  a  few  rustics,  who 
always  draw  back  the  riglit  foot  as  they  bow,  is 
another  faint  relic  of  the  kneeling  ceremony.  In 
fact,  whenever  we  now  bow  to  an  acquaintance, 
we  are  using  in  an  abridged  and  purely  polite 
form  an  ancient  prostration  which  once  meant,  "  I 
am  your  slave  and  captive.  I  am  beaten  and  con- 
quered. Do  as  you  please  with  me.  I  will  not 
resist  you.  Kill  me  or  command  me."  Like  the 
equally  meaningless  phrases,  "Yours  to  com- 
mand," or  "I  am,  sir,  your  obedient  servant,"  it 
is  a  long  survival  from  an  earlier  and  more  servile 
stage,  and  it  points  back  at  last  to  a  very  rude 
and  savage  origin. 


191  THE  OUWLV  OF  BOWING. 

But  \\\\y  do  we  raise  our  liats  in  bowing  ?  The 
unsophisticated  savage  in  his  native  liaunts  sel- 
dom wears  a  liat  at  all ;  and  when  lie  does,  lie  is 
not  in  the  liabit  (»f  lifting  it  gracefully  to  the 
ladies  of  his  tribe  whenever  he  meets  them.  Mis 
recognition  of  the  fairer  sex  is  far  more  likely  to 
assume  the  ungallant  form  of  soundly  kicking 
them,  a  practice  not  wbolly  extinct  even  in  the 
placid  bosom  of  our  modern  IJritish  civilization. 
Nevertheless,  even  the  practice  of  lifting  the  hat 
is  in  itself  an  exactly  similar  survival  from  an 
early  savage  propitiatory  custom.  For,  when  one 
savage  conquers  another,  whether  he  kills  him  or 
not,  the  first  thing  he  does  is  to  strip  the  body, 
alive  or  dead,  of  all  its  weapons,  armor,  and  orna- 
ments. Even  in  the  Homeric  poems,  when  a 
noble  Greek  slays  a  noble  Trojan,  he  proceeds 
immediately  with  heroic  utilitarianism  to  loot  and 
strip  the  bleeding  corpse ;  when  he  takes  one 
alive,  and  makes  a  slave  of  him,  he  snatches  the  \ 
golden  trinkets  from  his  neck  and  appropriates 
his  personal  property  generally  as  the  spoils  of 
war  and  the  perquisite  of  the  conqueror.  To 
this  day,  when  a  Zulu  or  an  Afghan  catches  poor 
Tommy  Atkins  straggling  incautiously  from  the 
line  of  march,  he  takes  over  the  red  tunic  and  the 
belt  and  haversack  as  his  own  trophy  of  the  inglo- 
rious victory.  Now,  just  as  the  savage  throws 
himself  on  his  back  or  falls  on  his  face  to  symbol- 


THE  OHIO  IN  OF  BGWINO,  11)5 

ize  his  complete  submission,  so,  also,  when  resist- 
ance is  impossible,  be  voluntarily  offers  up  bis 
arms  and  clotbing  to  tbe  stronger  party,  in  tlie 
bope  thereby  of  puruha'sing  his  life.  "  Here,"  he 
says  in  effect  by  his  actions,  "take  all  I  have 
—  my  spear,  my  shield,  my  necklet  of  beads,  my 
girdle  of  grass,  or  skins,  or  wampum  ;  take  my 
feathers,  my  anklets,  my  amulets,  and  let  me  go, 
a  naked  and  defenceless  creature,  your  slave  and 
your  captive,  wherever  you  may  lead  me.  If  you 
.  give  me  my  life,  I  am  am[)ly  satisfied." 

Tliis  practical  giving-up  of  arms  and  clothing, 
begun  as  a  means  of  propitiating  a  con{iueror,  be- 
comes at  last  a  ceremonial  usage,  much  in  favor 
among  savage  or  barbarous  kings,  who  often  tlius 
exact  their  tribute  from  their  vassals  and  feuda- 
tories. Sometiiues  the  minor  chiefs,  on  the  annual 
reckoning  day,  present  themselves,  gorgeously  at- 
tired, at  the  palace  of  their  sovereign,  and  one  by 
one  strip  off  and  hand  to  him  their  long  rolls  of 
red  cloth  and  their  barbaric  gewgaws,  often  at  tlie 
same  time  putting  their  necks  humbly  beneath  his 
feet,  as  if  to  renew  their  homage  and  acknowl- 
edge their  submission.  In  certain  cases  etiquette 
demands  that  they  should  leave  the  royal  j)resence 
utterly  unclothed ;  in  other  instances  they  are 
required  to  give  up  only  the  more  ornamental  })art 
of  their  outer  covering,  and  to  retain  as  much  as 
is   strictly   necessary   for   the    bare    purposes    of 


198  THE  OBJGIN  OF  BOWING. 

decent  clotliing.  There  are  countries  where 
slaves  must  always  appear  naked  at  least  before 
the  faces  of  chiefs  and  kings,  and  others  where 
their  inferiority  is  marked  only  by  their  less 
amount  of  clothing,  and  by  the  upper  half  of  the 
body  being  left  uncovered.  From  this  beginning 
every  intermediate  stage  occurs,  somewhere  or 
other  in  the  world,  up  to  the  mere  formal  lifting 
of  a  hat  or  cap  as  a  mark  of  politeness  or  a  token 
of  inferiority.  In  Abyssinia  and  in  some  of  the 
South  Sea  Islands,  whenever  common  clay  meets 
a  great  chief  strutting  along  with  all  his  follow- 
ers, common  clay  unclothes  itself  down  to  its 
dusky  waist,  as  if  to  say,  "  We  are  your  slaves. 
Take  our  clothes;  they  are  yours;  we  yield  them  up 
to  you  with  a  good  grace  I "  In  all  the  countries 
where  men  wear  liats,  they  remove  their  hats  also 
as  well  as  their  upper  garments;  and  to  stand 
with  one's  hat  on  in  the  presence  of  a  superior 
has  always  been  considered  even  in  civilized 
countries  a  specially  unwarrantable  piece  of  inso- 
lence. To  be  bareheaded  is  the  mark  of  servi- 
tude ;  and  so,  when  King  Edward,  in  that  very 
un chivalrous  fit  of  vulgar  spite,  demanded  expia- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  burgesses  of  Calais  for 
their  long  and  gallant  resistance,  Eustache  de  St. 
Pierre  and  his  brave  companions  were  brought 
before  him  bare  of  head,  stripped  to  their 
shirts,  and  with  halters  of  rope  fastened  round 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWING.  197 

their  necks  —  a  truly  barbarous  expression  of 
complete  submission,  surviving  strangely  into  the 
so-called  age  of  chivalry.  In  the  East  it  is  the 
shoes  rather  than  the  hat  or  turban  that  men 
usually  remove  as  a  sign  of  respect,  perhaps  be- 
cause of  the  danger  of  sunstroke  were  they  to 
stand  uncovered  under  an  almost  tropical  sky. 
In  Burmah  even  at  the  present  day,  every  Eng- 
lishman who  approaches  the  king's  presence  has 
to  do  obeisance  by  taking  ofif  his  shoes,  just  as  in 
England  people  kiss  the  hand  of  royalty ;  and  in 
Persia  no  one  may  come  near  the  Shah  without 
baring  his  feet  in  token  of  submission.  Shoes  are 
left  at  the  doors  of  the  mosques,  exactly  as  we 
ourselves  uncover  our  heads  in  churches;  the 
ceremonial  considered  appropriate  for  human  kings 
is  everywhere  held  to  be  due  in  a  still  higher 
degree  on  entering  the  gates  of  the  divine 
dwelling. 

We  thus  see  that  bowing  and  courtesying  are 
the  last  relics  of  an  old  slavish  and  savage  observ- 
ance ;  and,  though  among  ourselves  they  have 
become  in  the  end  mere  polite  and  graceful  formal- 
ities, they  still  retain  something  of  their  original 
meaning  in  the  fact  that  they  are  specially  due 
from  inferiors  to  superiors  and  from  the  younger 
to  the  elder,  while  mitigated  by  the  peculiar  fact 
that  men  now  chivalrously  salute  women.  Eng- 
lishmen stand  and  uncover  in  the   presence  of 


198  THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWING. 

ro}'alty,  or  when  "  God  save  the  Queen  "  is  sung 
or  played ;  servants  bow  and  touch  tlieir  hats  to 
tlieir  masters ;  soldiers  salute  their  ofiicers  respect- 
fully ;  schoolboys  are  always  rigorously  required 
to  "  cap  "  their  teachers.     On  the  other  hand,  our 
modern  American  notions  of  the  dignity  of  man- 
hood, and  the  touching  respect  due  to  women, 
have  largely  modified  and  even  altered  the  sense 
attached  to  those  antique  observances.     They  are 
no  longer  servile ;  they  are  courteous  and  grace- 
ful.   Equals  now  bow  to  one  another,  not  obsequi- 
ously, but  as  an  act  of  self-respecting  and  recipro- 
/  cal  politeness;  the  more  thoroughly  a  man  recog- 
\   nizes  the  natural  digi.ity  of  his  own  position,  the 
]    more  scrupulous  will  he  be  in  saluting  others  with 
I    the  proper  respect  due  to  their  personality.     The 
\influence  of  the  chivalrous  conception  of  woman 
Jias   still    more    profoundly   metamorphosed    the 

i ceremony  of  bowing.  We  raise  our  hat  to  a  lady, 
partly  as  a  mark  of  courtesy  to  her  sex,  but  partly, 
too,  as  a  sign  of  our  own  politeness  and  good 
breeding  —  a  habit  that  differentiates  the  gentle- 
jnan  from  the  boor,  the  man  of  education  and 
pefinement  from  the  churl  and  the  rustic.  In  this 
way,  a  ceremony  that  started  in  slavish  submissive- 
ness  and  savage  prostration  has  grown  at  last  into  a 
distinguishing  habit  of  the  polished  and  civilized 
modern  gentleman.  Politeness  generally  has  un- 
dergone a  similar  slow  transforming  process;  it 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BOWINO.  199 

began  with  the  servile  and  self-seeking  adulation 
of  tlie  great  by  their  inferiors ;  it  has  ended  witli 
the  relined  and  polished  intercourse  of  equals, 
who  respect  themselves  and  one  another,  defer 
mutually  in  their  conversation  or  arrangements, 
and  so  far  as  possible  postpone  tlieir  own  personal 
convenience  to  the  pleasure  and  comfort  of  the 
society  around  them.  In  the  East  and  in  all 
despotic  countries,  the  prevalent  politeness  is  still 
the  politeness  of  grossly  servile  llattery.  The 
mild  Hindoo  habitually  describes  himself  in 
speaking  as  "your  slave."  If  you  ask  him  whose 
horse  that  is,  he  answers,  "Your  Highness'," 
meaning  it  is  his  own,  and,  like  all  that  belongs  to 
him,  absolutely  at  your  service.  The  phrase 
"Thy  servant"  is  common  in  the  Bible  narratives, 
as  it  still  is  in  Syria  and  Egypt.  Self-abasement, 
real  or  pretended,  before  a  great  man  is,  in  fact, 
the  very  root  idea  of  Oriental  politeness.  In 
Spain  and  other  parts  of  Southern  Europe  much 
the  same  extravagent  ceremonial  expressions  still 
prevail.  In  taking  leave  of  a  friend,  you  throw 
yourself  (verbally  only)  at  his  Excellency's  feet ; 
on  meeting  a  lady,  you  observe  that  you  kiss  the 
senora's  hand.  But,  as  we  reach  the  freer,  more 
industrial,  and  more  self-respecting  northern  coun- 
tries, we  find  a  genuine  consideration  for  each 
other's  feelings  replacing  this  overwrought  and 
exaggerated  verbiage.     With  ourselves  excessive 


200  THE  ORIGIN  OF  B OWING. 

bowing  and  scraping  are  no  longer  the  fashion ; 
but  equals  pay  to  equals  and  expect  from  equals 
an  amount  of  real  and  genuine  politeness  which  is 
seldom  equalled  in  the  countries  where  conven- 
tional courtesy  takes  the  absurd  form  of  an  elabo- 
rate and  profound  servile  adulation.  In  China  a 
man  asks  his  friend,  "  How  are  your  exalted  self 
and  your  distinguished  wife  and  noble  children  ? 
Have  you  left  them  well  at  your  palatial  man- 
sion?" To  which  his  friend  answers  politely, 
"Your  poor  slaves,  my  miserable  wife  and  un- 
worthy children,  are  at  their  insignificant  dwelling, 
enjoying  such  health  as  their  character  deserves. 
Your  meanest  servant  is  glad  to  see  your  eminent 
presence."  In  America  we  say  simply,  "  How  do 
you  do  ? "  and  the  answer  is  merely,  "  Pretty 
well,  thank  you " ;  but  the  real  sympathy  and 
friendliness  between  man  and  man  is  a  thousand 
times  greater  than  it  can  ever  be  among  all  the 
flowery  phrases  of  the  Celestial  Empire. 


•i*;''r    .,  m\ 


XVIII. 

ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS. 

No  form  of  scenery  within  the  four  sea-walls  of 
Britain  appears  to  the  American  visitor  more 
distinctively  and  markedly  English  than  that  of 
the  chalk  downs.  Indeed,  to  all  outsiders,  chalk 
is  as  it  were  the  chief  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
the  modern  British  nationality.  The  stranger 
who  for  the  first  time  approaches  the  shores  of 
England  from  the  opposite  continent  sees  before 
him  in  long  straight  line  the  "  white  cliffs  of  per- 
fidious Albion."  That  oldest  of  all  names  by 
which  the  island  was  known  to  the  outer  world 
is  itself  of  course  obviously  derived  from  the 
white  gleaming  bluffs  which  shone  so  brilliantly 
in  the  sunlight  to  gazers  from  the  high  ground 
about  Boulogne  and  Calais.  As  one  lies  in  the 
sunshine  by  the  mouldering  ruins  of  Caligula's 
tower,  on  the  edge  of  the  port  whence  the  mad 
tyrant  proposed  to  attack  the  coasts  of  Britain,  or 
gazes  across  the  sea  from  the  summit  of  that  pur- 
poseless column  erected  by  Napoleon's  army  of 
invasion  during  their  forced  inactivity  in  sight  of 
the  "perfidious"  island,  one  sees  a  dim   white 

201 


202  ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS. 

wall  of  chalk  upon  the  northern  horizon,  lighted 
up  by  the  full  rays  of  the  fronting  sun,  and 
stretching  from  Siiaksi)eare's  Cliff,  near  Dover,  to 
the  great  steep  promontory  of  lieachy  Head,  just 
above  Eastbourne.  That  was  the  Albion  of  the 
early  Gaulisli  merchantmen — that  is  the  Albion 
that  every  Continental  European  still  beholds  be- 
fore him  as  he  slowly  nears,  in  ship  or  steamer, 
the  coast  of  England.  Over  and  over  agtiin 
around  the  British  Isles,  those  sheer  white  walls 
rise  proudly  from  the  sea,  as  if  to  defend  and 
guard  the  ap])roaches  to  our  country  from  the 
Continental  side.  Tliey  begin  in  the  tall  chalk 
bluffs  of  IJeer  in  Devon,  the  westernmost  outlier 
of  the  cretaceous  system  in  this  corner  of  Europe ; 
they  continue  at  intervals  along  the  Dorset  coast 
about  Weymouth  and  Lulworth ;  they  form  the 
sharp,  jagged  summits  of  the  Needles  in  the  Isle 
of  Wight  and  the  grand  barrier  of  the  Main 
Bench  in  Freshwater  Bay ;  they  reapi)ear  once 
more  in  the  Culver  Cliffs  that  gleam  across  the 
sea  near  the  entrance  to  Portsmouth ;  they  rise 
again  on  the  Marine  Parade  at  Brighton,  whence 
they  stretch  past  Beachy  Head  with  a  few  breaks 
and  intermissions  to  Dover ;  they  give  origin  to 
the  North  Foreland  and  the  familiar  ledges  of  the 
Isle  of  Tlianet ;  thence  the}'  sweep  round  almost 
unseen  by  the  Norfolk  bulge  to  the  Wolds  of 
Lincolnshire,   and   finally   abut   on   the    German 


ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS.  203 

Ocean  in  the  grand  chalk  cliffs  of  Flaniborongh 
Head,  ui)()n  tiie  Yorkshire  coast.  No  wonder, 
tlien,  that  to  Continental  nations  these  white  walls 
of  the  Isle  of  Albion  should  always  have  been 
regarded  as  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  Eng- 
lish shore. 

Inland  the  chalk  downs  cover  a  very  large  por- 
tion of  England,  whose  i)eculiar  type  of  undulat- 
ing scenery  is  probably  unmatched  in  any  other 
part  of  the  civilized  world.  The  greatest  mass  of 
chalk  in  one  continuous  belt  in  the  whole  of  Brit- 
ain is  that  which  has  its  centre  in  the  irregular 
boss  of  Salisbur}'  Plain,  stretching  out  huge 
feelers  in  every  direction,  towards  Dorset  and 
Devon  on  the  one  hand,  and  towards  the  Chiitern 
Hills,  the  North  Downs,  and  the  South  Downs  on 
the  other.  It  is  this  mass,  of  course,  lying  close 
to  our  greatest  centre  of  population  and  our  best- 
known  watering-places,  that  is  most  familiar  to 
the  majority  of  Englishmen.  The  curious  way  in 
which  its  surface  is  sculptured  into  long  rolling 
hog's-backs  and  saucer-shaped  combes  is  so  en- 
tirely characteristic  of  the  whole  formation,  and 
so  closel}''  dependent  upon  the  original  nature  and 
disposition  of  the  chalk,  that,  to  account  for  its 
peculiar  hollows  and  bottoms,  we  must  consider  a 
little  the  circumstances  in  which  the  existing 
state  of  things  in  Southern  England  has  been 
produced. 


204  ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS. 

Chalk  as  a  whole  was  laid  down  at  first  in  one 
continuous  slieet  of  white  mud  upon  the  bed  of  a 
great  inland  sea,  a  branch  of  the  Atlantic  in  far 
distant  times,  which  stretched  like  an  old  prime- 
val Mediterranean  right  across  the  face  of 
Northern  and  Central  Europe.  Soft  ooze  of 
almost  exactly  the  same  sort  is  still  being  depos- 
ited in  many  parts  of  the  Atlantic  bottom,  whence 
it  has  been  dredged  up,  in  the  yet  plastic  condi- 
tion, from  the  depths  of  the  sea,  by  the  scientific 
explorers  of  the  Challenger  expedition  and  other 
investigators.  This  modern  chalk,  even  now 
growing  up  before  our  very  eyes,  consists  chiefly 
of  extremely  minute  or  microscopic  shells,  com- 
posed for  the  most  part  of  lime  which  the  tiny 
animals  that  frame  the  shells  secrete  from  solu- 
tion in  the  sea  around  them.  Fragments  of  chalk 
from  the  cliffs  and  cuttings  of  Kent  or  Sussex, 
when  examined  in  the  powdered  state  under  the 
microscope,  are  found  to  be  made  up  of  broken 
shells,  exactly  similar  to  these,  each  so  minute  as 
to  be  quite  invisible  to  the  naked  eye,  but  form- 
ing in  the  mass  the  entire  thickness  of  our  English 
deposits.  In  some  places  the  chalk  is  loosely 
interstratified  with  layers  of  flint,  which  derive 
their  origin  from  silicious  sponges  and  other  sim- 
ilar creatures  which  lived  in  the  same  seas  con- 
temporaneously with  the  chalk-forming  organisms. 
At  first,  no  doubt,  flint  and  chalk,  silicious  ooze 


ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS.  205 

and  calcareous  slime  settled  down  together  in  a 
soft  and  mingled  mass  of  mud  ;  but  gradually,  as 
time  went  on,  the  flinty  particles  collected  to- 
gether into  solid  veins  and  lumps,  while  the  wliole 
material  was  still  in  the  plastic  and  almost  liijuid 
condition,  exactly  as  the  sugar  in  currant  jelly 
often  crystallizes  out  into  little  nodules,  dispersed 
irregularly  through  the  surrounding  mass. 

In  process  of  ages  the  cretaceous  sea  under- 
went great  changes,  and  the  whole  immense 
layer  of  chalk,  then  stretching  unbroken  over 
enormous  districts  of  England,  France,  Holland, 
and  Belgium,  came  to  be  overlaid  by  the  newer 
deposits  of  the  tertiary  seas,  which  once,  no 
doubt,  completely  covered  it  in  every  part.  Later 
still  the  work  of  elevation  began,  and  (with  many 
minor  vicissitudes  which  need  not  here  be  de- 
tailed) Eastern  England  rose  at  last  above  the 
level  of  the  sea.  At  that  time,  without  question, 
the  chalk  was  still  unbroken  between  Dover  and 
Calais.  The  North  Sea  and  the  English  Channel 
had  no  existence,  and  the  white  cliffs  of  perfidious 
Albion  had  not  yet  begun  to  be  formed  and  un- 
dermined by  the  encroaching  waves.  But  with 
the  advance  of  the  ages  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic 
began  their  long  aggressive  movement  upon  the 
broad  belt  of  soft  chalky  strata  which  then  con- 
nected the  South  and  East  of  England  with  the 
opposite  shore  of  France  and  Belgium.     Slowly 


206  ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS. 

and  gnidiially,  a  step  at  a  time,  the  biealcers  and 
the  hiiidspriiigs,  acting  in  concert,  wore  away  tlio 
bridge  of  intervening  land,  and  hft  (he  twin  clills 
of  Dover  and  Cap  Bhmcnez  as  the  witnesses  of 
tlie  great  isthmus  that  once  obviated  the  necessity 
for  the  construction  of  a  Cljannel  Tunnel.  To 
this  day  the  geological  strata  answer  to  one 
another  exactly  on  either  side  the  Straits ;  and  at 
the  luirrow  point  where  the  Gernuxn  Ocean,  ad- 
vancing south  westward,  at  last  shook  hands  with 
the  English  Channel,  advancing  northeastward, 
the  correspondence  between  the  two  sets  of  cliffs 
on  each  side  of  the  sea  suggests  at  once  the  idea 
of  a  forcible  disruption  —  a  breach  effected  in  a 
solid  continent  by  the  continual  assaults  of  winds 
and  waters. 

Meanwhile  the  inland  mass  of  chalk,  the  last 
relics  of  which  now  form  the  English  downs,  had 
been  undergoing  no  less  remarkable  and  interest- 
ing changes.  When  the  southeast  coast  was 
first  raised  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  the  entire 
layer  of  white  chalk  —  a  solid  tliickness  of  several 
hundred  feet  —  must  have  been  covered  from  end 
to  end  by  the  deep  deposits  of  the  tertiary  ages. 
In  many  places  —  as,  for  example,  in  London  and 
in  the  eastern  counties  —  these  later  sediments, 
the  muddy  or  sandy  bottom  of  some  forgotten 
estuary  and  ocean,  still  cover  the  whole  surface 
of  the  chalk  with  a  thick  layer  of  superimposed 


ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS.  207 

luaterial.  Everybody  knows  tluit,  if  in  London 
you  bore  deep  enough  tlnough  the  chiy  wliicli 
there  forms  the  surface  stratum  of  the  Thames 
basin,  you  come  at  last  upon  tlie  i)ure  and  virgin- 
wliite  chalk  thiit  lies  hidden  beneath  it.  But  in 
many  other  i)laces  —  as,  for  example,  along  the 
entire  ridge  of  the  North  and  South  Downs  —  the 
original  capping  of  clay  and  sandstone  has 
been  completely  worn  away,  and  the  chalk 
itself  forms  the  surface  of  the  earth,  cov- 
ered only  by  a  shallow  turf  of  fresh  green- 
sward, through  which  it  is  often  easy  to  cut  with 
a  knife  into  the  underlying  white  deposit.  The 
fact  is  that,  during  the  elevation  of  England  which 
produced  the  existing  contour  of  the  country,  the 
whole  surface  was  not  elevated  equally,  but  was 
pushed  up  into  ridges  along  the  downs  and  the 
Chilterns,  while  it  remained  but  little  elevated 
along  the  Thames  valley  and  the  Eastern  Coun- 
ties. On  the  higher  portions,  dislocated  and 
loosened  as  they  were  by  the  slow  action  of  the 
upheaving  force,  the  rain  and  streams  wor«  away 
gradually  the  overlying  clays  and  sandstone?,  till 
they  reached  at  last  the  naked  chalk  that  lay 
buried  beneath.  Nay,  in  certain  spots  —  as,  for  * 
example,  in  the  Weald  of  Kent  and  Surrey  — 
where  the  elevating  j)ower  acted  most  forcibly, 
the  rain  has  even  slowly  worked  through  the 
whole  thickness  of  the  chalk  itself,  and  exposed 


208  ENGLISH  CUALK  DOWNS. 

tho  wealden  clays  and  sands  that  lie  under  its 
bottom.  Owing  to  this  extraordinary  denuding 
action,  the  chalk  ceases  abruptly  at  the  escarp- 
ment of  the  North  Downs,  and  reappears  again 
only  near  Brighton,  having  been  worn  away  over 
the  entire  intervening  region  by  the  gradual 
power  of  the  rain  and  streams.  But  once  upon 
a  time  the  chalk  must  have  spread  uninterruptedly 
from  the  one  range  of  downs  to  the  other  across 
what  is  now  the  deep  valley  of  the  Weald  of 
Sussex. 

It  is  to  the  same  cause  that  we  owe  the  very 
peculiar  rounded  conformation  of  our  existing 
chalk  downs.  Indeed,  the  whole  set  of  actions  here 
described  is  not  something  that  once  took  place  in 
the  remote  past,  but  something  that  is  still  slowly 
taking  place  everywhere  around  us  at  the  present 
moment.  The  chalk  downs  are  still  being  per- 
petually attacked  and  disintegrated  by  the  rain, 
and  are  still  being  everywhere  unbuilt  and  lowered 
and  cut  back  farther  and  farther  before  our  very 
faces.  Every  shower  that  falls  upon  the  chalk 
slopes  carries  down  in  its  drops  carbonic  acid  in 
solution;  and  the  carbonic  acid  thus  introduced 
helps  to  dissolve  the  lime  which  forms  the  chalk, 
rendering  the  water  excessively  "hard,"  as  we 
say  of  all  water  with  an  excessive  quantity  of 
lime  dissolved  in  it.  The  water  and  the  lime 
sink  together  down  through  the  chalk,  and  come 


ENGLISH  CHALK  DOWNS,  209 

out  below  it  in  the  form  of  springs.  That  is  why 
clialk  assumes  such  peculiar  bossed  and  rounded 
forms.  Moreover,  it  gives  rise  to  no  rivers  or 
brooks,  which  cut  themselves  little  valleys  or 
gorges  in  other  strata;  it  is  so  porous  that  the 
water  which  falls  upnn  it  sinks  in  at  once,  carry- 
ing down  with  it  small  quantities  of  tlie  lime  in 
solution.  Soil  seldom  forms  upon  the  top;  there 
is  nothing  to  retain  it  on  such  rounded  slopes;  it 
gets  washed  away  as  fast  as  it  grows,  and  is  car- 
ried down  bv  the  surface  drainajje  into  the  combes 
or  hollows.  These  combes  represent  the  parts  of 
the  surface  where  the  chalk  hap])ened  to  be 
originally  softest,  while  the  ridges  are  the  liarder 
and  more  compact  places,  often  protected  from 
the  constant  waste  by  layers  of  Hint  or  concreted 
lime-beds. 

AH  the  external  peculiarities  of  the  downs  as 
we  know  them  nowadays  thus  depend  ui>on  their 
primitive  geological  structure  and  their  subse- 
quent sculpture  by  wind  and  water.  The  short 
turf  with  which  they  are  covered  depends  upon 
the  scantiness  and  shallowness  of  the  soil ;  and 
for  the  same  reason  trees  are  rare,  growing  for 
the  most  i)art  only  in  the  combes,  or,  if  on  the 
summit,  then  generally  where  old  prehistoric 
earthworks  have  permitted  the  accumulation  of 
deeper  soil  by  preventing  the  constant  downward 
wash    which  generally   takes    place    upon    these 


210  ENQLISH  CHALK  DOWNS. 

rounded  surfaces.  Under  other  conditions  there 
is  no  depth  of  soil  for  the  trees  to  root  in  ;  and  so 
the  native  vegetation  of  tlje  downs,  appearing 
wherever  tliey  liave  not  been  cleared  for  forming 
sheep-walks,  consists  almost  exclusively  of  juniper, 
yew,  gorse,  and  blackthorn  —  all  of  them  shrubs 
that  require  but  little  foothold  to  assist  them  in 
fastening  on  the  bare  rock.  Few  or  no  rivers 
flow  over  the  chalk,  save  in  the  deepest  and  nv)st 
basin-like  hollows;  elscwheie,  as  in  the  countr}'' 
of  the  Downs  and  Wolds,  the  streams  that  inter- 
sect them  have  long  since  cut  themselves  narrow 
and  precipitous  gorges  in  tlie  soft  chalk,  by  which 
they  burst  through  the  barrier  ridges.  Thus  the 
Thames  has  carved  out  for  itself  the  picturesque 
dale  between  Mapleduiham  and  Ilcnley,  across 
the  Chilterns  and  the  Berkshire  Downs  ;  and  thus 
its  tributaries,  the  Mole  and  the  Wey,  have  forced 
their  road  through  the  long  line  that  extends 
across  the  country  from  Salisbury  Plain  to  the 
great  white  cliffs  that  overhang  Ramsgate.  Our 
southern  coast  scenery  itself  has  owed  its  origin 
to  much  the  same  assemblage  of  circumstances ; 
here,  low  tertiary  levels  slide  easily  under  the 
bed  of  the  Channel ;  there,  the  end  of  the  Downs 
topples  over  precipitously  into  the  sea  in  a  shorn, 
white  cliff;  and  yonder,  again,  the  whole  thick- 
ness of  the  chalk  has  been  denuded  off  by  the 
wearing  agency  of  wind  and  weather,  and  the 


JSNGLISU  CHALK  DOWNS.  211 

sandstone  hills  that  underlie  it  have  been  exposed 
to  the  undermining  action  of  t.ie  landsprings  and 
billows.  Thus  the  whole  of  Southeastern  Eng- 
land bears  everywhere  the  '"  *  ess  of  the  white 
sheet  deposited  on  its  surface  so  many  ages  since 
under  the  forgotten  waters  of  some  vaguely  limited 
and  long-vanished  sea. 


XIX. 

SPRING  BLOSSOMS. 

It  is  a  curious  circumstance,  wliich  must  have 
struck  even  the  most  casual  and  uninquiring 
observer  of  nature  that  ahnost  all  the  flowers 
of  early  spring  are  developed  from  underground 
bulbs  or  large  tubers.  First  of  all  in  the 
floral  calendar  of  the  year  the  snowdrop  unfolds 
its  pure  white  buds  to  the  winds  of  winter. 
Almost  simultaneously  the  twin  crocuses,  golden 
and  purple,  send  up  their  exquisite  goblet-shaped 
cups  from  the  little  buried  globular  bulbs  that  lurk 
unseen  during  the  remainder  of  the  season  beneath 
the  deep  mould  of  the  garden  border.  Scarcely 
have  their  delicate  heads  been  beaten  down  by 
March  winds,  or  laid  low  in  the  draggled  mire  by 
gusty  showers,  when  the  varied  wealth  of  red  and 
blue  and  snow-white  hyacinths  begin  to  dis[)lay 
their  scented  trusses  in  the  eye  of  the  daily 
strengthening  sun.  Next,  the  daff"odils  and  jon- 
quils gayly  flaunt  their  beauty  to  the  air,  and  the 
poet's  narcissus,  daintiest  of  all  its  lovely  kind, 
perfumes  the  parterres  with  its  luscious  odor. 
Tulips  succeed  in  due  order  ;  and  with  them  come 

212 


SPRING  BLOSSOMS.  213 

the  pretty  cyclamen,  the  scarlet  anemone,  and  the 
turban  ranunculus  with  its  quaintly  striped  and 
8])otted  buttons.  Every  one  of  these,  as  well  as 
the  less  familiar  winter  aconites,  white  snowflakes, 
Siberian  squills,  and  blue  grape-hyacinths,  grows 
exclusively  from  bulbs  or  tubers.  Not  a  single 
conspicuous  ornament  of  our  spring  gardens  but 
owes  its  beauty  in  like  manner  to  a  buried  store  of 
garnered  nutriment. 

If  we  look  abroad  to  the  pretty  wild-flowers  of 
English  and  American  fields  and  meadov  s,  the 
same  curious  coincidence  is  even  more  strongly 
forced  upon  our  notice,  and  the  meaning  of  the 
facts  on  which  the  law  depends  brought  home  to 
us  yet  more  clearly.  The  brilliant  coltsfoot,  that 
bright  golden  mass  of  fluffy  blossom  that  often 
makes  gay  and  beautiful  the  banks  of  railway-cut- 
tings in  suburban  London  throughout  the  chilly 
days  of  March  and  April,  springs  from  a  long  and 
stout  buried  rootstock,  and  unfolds  its  leafless 
head  naked  to  the  breezes,  being  followed  only 
after  long  weeks  of  interval  by  the  large  and 
stately  spreading  foliage.  So  too  with  the  Amer- 
ican hepatica  and  bloodroot.  The  lesser  celan- 
dine, a  low  but  beautiful  species  of  the  buttercup 
genus  that  spangles  the  meadows  with  its  golden 
stars  long  before  any  other  cons})icuous  flower  has 
begun  to  open  in  the  English  fields,  possesses  in- 
numerable tiny  round  tubers  on   its  roots,  which 


214  SPRING  BLOSSOMS. 

have  given  it  its  common  local  names  of  pill  wort 
and  })ile\v()it.  The  Lent  lilies,  now  so  commonly 
sold  in  great  bunches  about  the  streets  of  London 
—  since  the  "  aisthetic  "  reformers  brought  English 
wild-flowers  for  a  while  into  fashion — are  the 
uncultivated  form  of  the  native  daffodil,  and  grow, 
like  all  their  tribe,  from  deeply  rooted  bulbous 
bases.  The  American  yellow  lilies  are  of  like 
habit.  The  common  arum,  known  to  village  chil- 
dren by  its  quaint  old-fashioned  name  of  lords- 
and-ladies,  and  to  country-folk  generally  by  the 
still  quainter  and  older  title  of  cuckoo-pint,  has  a 
thick  and  succulent  buried  rootstock  so  richly 
stored  with  an  abundant  stock  of  hoarded  nutri- 
ment that  it  used  in  former  days  to  be  dug  up  on 
the  Isle  of  Portland  for  the  sake  of  the  starch  it 
contained,  which  was  sold  to  poor  consumers  as 
Portland  arrowroot.  Similarly,  the  little  yellow 
bulbous  buttercup  is  the  first  of  all  our  true  but- 
tercups to  unfold  its  golden  petals  to  the  sun  ; 
■while  the  almost  indistinguishable  meadow  butter- 
cup, discriminated  from  it  in  the  blossom  onl}^  by 
botanical  eyes,  flowers  a  full  month  or  six  weeks 
later,  because  it  has  no  bulb  or  tuber  from  which 
to  derive  a  store  of  ready-made  material. 

The  rationale  of  this  almost  universal  bulbous 
habit  among  early  spring  flowers  hardly  needs  to 
be  pointed  out  to  the  intelligent  observer  of  the 
external  world.     Leaves,  as  everybody  now  knows, 


SPRING  BLOSSOMS.  215 

are  the  real  mouths  and  stomachs  and  digestive 
oigans  of  the  vegetabl  economy.  The  business 
of  the  root,  wliich  most  people  used  to  imagine 
was  entirely  intended  for  sucking  up  the  nutri- 
ment of  the  plant,  consists  really  for  the  most  part 
in  the  mere  subordinate  function  of  water-supply. 
The  real  raw  material  of  leaf  and  stem  and  flower 
and  fruit  is  ultimately  derived  from  the  carbonic 
acid  diffused  in  the  gaseous  condition  through  the 
surrounding  atmosphere.  If  this  seems  at  first 
sight  a  hard  saying,  we  have  only  to  remember 
the  familiar  yet  crucial  instance  of  a  hyacinth 
grown  in  a  glass  vase  filled  with  water.  Here  it 
is  quite  clear,  even  to  the  most  unscientific  mind, 
that  the  roots,  which  descend  into  the  glass,  can 
supply  the  plant  with  nothing  more  than  the 
water  they  float  in.  It  is  the  work  of  the  leaves 
to  extract  the  solid  particles  of  carbon  from  the 
air  around  and  to  build  them  up  with  oxygen, 
hydrogen,  and  nitrogen  into  the  starches  and  the 
active  living  principles  which  ultimately  compose 
the  entire  plant.  Exactly  the  same  sort  of  evi- 
dence is  afforded  by  the  common  cottage  priictice 
of  growing  mustard-and-cress  in  a  saucer  upon  a 
small  piece  of  wetted  flannel.  It  is  quite  evident 
in  such  a  case  that  the  rootlets  of  the  cress  supply 
the  growing  seedlings  only  with  the  water  which 
they  absorb  from  the  flannel  on  which  they  creep, 
while  the  entire  work  of  collecting  material  for 


216  SPRING  BLOSSOMS. 

the  growth  of  the  plant  is  handed  over  to  the 
green  leaves  in  the  open  sunlight.  In  fact,  the 
sole  use  of  roots  is  to  suppl}"-  the  leaves  with  proper 
moisture,  and  with  the  very  small  quantity  of 
mineral  matter  and  nitrogen  compounds  which  the 
plant  requires  for  its  full  development.  The  main 
work  of  feeding  the  whole  herb  is  carried  on  by 
the  green  foliage. 

This  being  so,  it  is  easy  enough  to  see  that 
plants  are  entirely  dependent  for  support  upon 
their  green  leaves.  During  the  summer-time  these 
leaves,  expanded  freely  to  the  warm  sun,  are  per- 
petually engaged  in  manufacturing  starches  and 
other  raw  materials  for  the  future  growth  of  the 
■whole  vegetable  system.  To  the  outer  eye,  the 
plant  appears  a  stationary,  motionless,  and  almost 
lifeless  thing ;  but,  if  we  could  but  watch  with  a 
microscopic  vision  its  unceasing  processes  of 
change  and  development,  we  should  see  that  it  is 
in  reality  a  strange  and  busy  natural  laboratory, 
where  endless  curious  operations  are  for  ever 
taking  place  with  marvellous  rapidity  in  every 
direction.  The  sap  is  circulating  and  moving 
ceaselessly  from  cell  to  cell ;  the  green  material  in 
the  exposed  surface  is  busily  assimilating  particles 
of  carbon  from  the  surrounding  air;  the  root  is 
supplying  water  and  small  quantities  of  other 
necessary  materials ;  the  digestive  organs  are 
working  up  the  whole  by  some  subtle  chemistry 


SPRING  BLOSSOMS.  217 

into  the  future  elements  of  fruit  and  flower  anel 
seed  and  woody  tissue.  What  looks  to  us  a  mere 
inert  and  lifeless  expanse  of  green  matter  is  in 
reality  a  living  theatre  of  the  most  varied  activities. 
Chief  amongst  them  all  are  the  manufacture  and 
storing  away  of  the  raw  material  which  must  ulti- 
mately be  used  up  in  the  final  production  of  the 
beautiful  blossoms,  and  of  the  useful  fruit  and 
necessary  seed  for  whose  benefit  they  really  exist. 
Now,  annual  plants  sprout  from  the  seed  in  the 
first  days  of  spring,  or  even  in  the  sunniest  winter 
weather ;  but,  before  they  can  lay  up  enough 
material  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  flower  and  the 
fruit,  they  must  form  a  considerable  number  of 
healthy  leaves,  and  raise  their  stem  to  a  reasonable 
height  above  tlie  surrounding  ground  from  which 
they  have  sprouted.  This  of  course  requires  a 
moderate  lapse  of  time  for  its  proper  accom})lish- 
ment.  And  so  every  amateur  gardener  must  have 
noticed  for  himself  that  annuals  never  in  any  case 
supply  the  earliest  spring  or  summer  flowers. 
For  the  most  part  they  do  not  begin  to  blossom 
freely  beiore  June  or  July,  while  many  of  the 
larger  ones,  like  sunflowers  and  thorn-apples, 
scarcely  manage  to  come  into  full  bloom  before 
the  middle  of  August  or  September.  It  is  the 
perennials  that  afford  us  all  our  early  blossoming 
garden  favorites,  and  that  deck  the  beds  witli 
crimson,  orange,  pink,  and  yellow  before  the  winds 


218  SPJilXO  BLOSSOMS. 

of  Miirch  liave  yet  subsided  or  the  showers  of 
April  have  ceased  from  falling.  The  hardy  wall- 
flowers that  brighten  the  crannies  of  the  rockery 
as  early  as  the  golden  crocuses  themselves  appear 
above  the  neighboring  beds,  the  white  arabis,  the 
purple  stocks,  and  the  few  other  practically  ever- 
green plants  that  preserve  their  foliage  unchanged 
through  the  winter,  are  all  perennials,  and  all  owe 
their  early  blooming  season  to  the  fact  that  their 
leaves  never  drop,  but  go  on  laying  up  material 
for  flowers  even  in  the  very  midst  of  a  northern 
winter. 

But,  among  perennials  themselves,  the  ones  that 
send  up  the  showiest  blossoms  in  the  first  days  of 
returning  spring  belong  almost  all  to  the  special 
class  which  have  learned  to  provide  for  an  early 
flowering  season  by  laying  by  a  rich  stock  of  ma- 
terial beforehand  in  a  bulb  or  tuber.  It  is  thus 
alone  that  they  can  manage  to  produce  a  handsome 
siiow  before  the  foliage  of  the  year  has  begun  to 
expand  its  m3^riad  mouths  to  the  sun  and  the 
atmosphere.  And  for  this  reason  it  is  rather 
noticeable  that  a  great  many  early  spring  flowers 
unfold  their  buds  either  quite  naked  and  leafless, 
like  coltsfoot  and  winter  aconite,  or  while  the 
leaves  are  still  very  small  and  hardly  showing 
above  the  ground,  as  is  the  case  with  the  crocus 
and  the  snowdrop.  The  plant  lays  by  starch  and 
other  nutriment  in  the  bulb  or  tuber  during  the 


SPRING  BLOSSOMS.  219 

preceding  year.  Even  the  very  flower-buds  them- 
selves are  aheady  present  in  a  very  simple  rudi- 
mentary shape  ;  and,  as  soon  as  tlie  warm  weather 
begins  to  return,  the  heads  of  bh)Ssoni  push  their 
way  up  boldly  through  the  soil,  relying  for  mate- 
rial to  supply  their  growth  on  the  bulb  beneath 
them.  As  soon  as  the  flowering  season  is  over, 
the  old  bulb  becomes  empty  and  flaccid;  it  has 
been  drained  of  the  starches  by  the  opening  flow- 
ers ;  and  then  the  leaves  of  tlie  new  year  begin  to 
form  a  second  bulb  for  the  next  season,  storing  it 
afresh  with  yet  another  granary  of  st.«rch  and 
similar  food-stufls.  This  flaccid  condition  of  the 
used-up  bulb  is  particularly  well  seen  in  hyacinths 
grown  in  the  common  colored  glass  specimen 
vases.  A  bulb,  in  short,  is  simply  a  means  of  stor- 
ing up  nutriment  one  season  for  the  supply  of  the 
])lant  during  the  early  months  of  the  next  succeed- 
ing one. 

Almost  the  only  very  early  spring  flowers  which 
do  not  thus  depend  for  nourishment  upon  bulbs 
or  tubers  are  those  of  shrubs  and  trees  ;  and  even 
here  the  underlying  difference  is  rather  apparent 
than  real ;  for  in  woody  plants  the  starclies  and 
other  useful  materials  of  growth  are  stored  up  in 
the  branches  and  stem,  just  as  they  are  stored  up 
in  underground  bulbs  or  tubers  by  the  more  soft 
and  succulent  herbs  like  daffodils  and  lilies.  Thus 
in  the  very  coldest  months  of  winter  the  yellow 


220  SPRING  BLOSsoyrs. 

jasmine  blossoms  freely  in  the  open  air  at  a  time 
when  all  its  leaves  are  shed,  so  that  only  the  pretty 
golden  flowers  themselves  star  the  surface  of  the 
naked  branches.  Gorse,  that  most  irrepressible  of 
English  flowering  shrubs,  never  ceases  in  the  same 
way  to  bloom  si)asmodically  throughout  the  entire 
winter,  though  in  this  case  the  leaves  are  ever- 
green and  capable  of  withstanding  the  severest 
frosts.  In  laurustinus,  again,  the  foliage  never 
drops;  and  so  leaves  aiid  flowers  appear  together 
in  the  first  days  of  early  spring-tide.  But  the 
pretty  and  curious  little  pink  mezereon  follows 
rather  the  custom  of  the  yellow  jasmine,  and  un- 
folds its  delicate  blossoms  to  the  air  before  the 
tiny  rosettes  of  green  leaves  have  begun  to  show 
at  the  stiff  summits  of  the  hard  little  branches. 
Flowering  almond  follows  the  same  course  ;  and 
so  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  do  the  cherry-blos- 
som, the  pyrus  japoni'ca,  the  pear,  and  the  ap[)]e. 
All  alike  derive  the  material  for  the  unfolding 
flowers  from  the  store  laid  by  in  the  previous  year 
among  the  permanent  tissues  of  the  branch  on 
which  they  grow. 

In  either  case,  whether  the  particular  blossom 
springs  from  a  bulb  or  from  the  branches  of  a  tree 
or  shrub,  the  conspicuous  spring  flowers  are  visited 
by  bees,  which  aid  in  fertilizing  them  and  setting 
tlieir  seed.  If  there  were  no  bees  in  winter,  there 
would  be    no    winter   flowers ;    for  the  blossoms 


SPRIXG  BLOSSOMS.  221 

open  only  in  order  to  attract  these  winged  visitors, 
to  whom  they  owe  their  due  impregnation.  But, 
if  one  watches,  say,  a  yellow  jasmine  or  a  bush  of 
gorse  on  a  sunny  morning  in  the  very  coldest 
months  of  the  whole  year,  no  very  long  time  will 
ever  be  found  to  ela[)se  before  a  bee  appears  upon 
the  scene  with  extended  jjroboscis,  eager  to  rifle 
the  freshly  opened  flowers  of  their  honeyed  store. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  plants  bloom  at  such 
an  apparently  inclement  and  unsuitable  season. 
They  want  to  attract  the  stray  bees,  whose  atten- 
tion they  secure  more  easily  at  such  a  time  than 
in  the  late  summer,  when  so  many  other  compet- 
itors are  striving  to  gain  a  portion  of  their  useful 
services.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  desir- 
able for  the  bees  —  especially  wild  ones  —  that 
there  should  be  some  such  winter-flowering  plants, 
because  they  need  honey  all  the  year  round,  and 
fly  about  in  the  very  depths  of  winter  on  every 
bright  and  sunny  day.  Hence  there  is  really  not 
a  single  absolutely  flowerless  month  throughout 
the  whole  year  in  our  northern  climates.  The 
bee  begins  his  floral  calendar  with  gorse  and 
aconite  and  jasmine  in  January,  and  continues  the 
succession  of  his  honey-bearing  blossoms  all  the 
year  round  till  he  ends  with  camomile  and  daisies 
and  Christmas  roses  in  late  December.  It  is  a 
balanced  system  of  mutual  accommodation.  The 
flowers  supply  the  hungry  bee  with  fresh  relays  of 


222  SPRING  BLOSSOMS. 

honey  through  all  the  months,  and  the  bee  contracts 
to  act  in  return  as  carrier  of  pollen  and  chief  fer- 
tilizer to  all  his  food-j)lants  from  season  to  season. 
Thus  the  double  end  of  nature  is  secured,  and 
each  great  division  of  life  ministers  to  the  other  in 
due  succession. 


XX. 

THE  EARTH'S    INTERIOR. 

From  a  very  early  period,  in  all  probability, 
man's  curiosity,  ever  awake  to  every  form  of 
mystery,  has  been  nmch  exercised  as  to  the  solid 
ground  that  lay  beneath  his  feet,  unexplored  and 
'inexplorable.  What  supported  it,  and  how  did 
it  get  there  ?  In  ancient  Hindoo  fable  the  world 
is  said  to  have  been  upheld  on  a  gigantic  elephant 
and  the  elephant  again  to  have  been  lifted  on  the 
back  of  a  huge  tortoise.  But  what  supported  the 
tortoise  that  supported  the  elephant  that  supported 
the  world,  Hindoo  mythology  did  not  either  deign 
or  venture  to  speculate.  Probably  that  titanic 
reptile  was  conceived  of  by  his  inventors  as  float- 
ing on  the  waters  with  which  popular  imagination 
hai.'  at  all  times  filled  the  interior  of  our  planet. 
So  long  indeed  as  the  earth  was  regarded  as  a  flat 
phiiii  —  as  it  is  still  considered  to  be  by  a  few  un- 
scientific and  half-insane  enthusiasts  —  there  was 
a  certain  show  of  evidence  forthcoming  for  the 
crude  idea  that  its  lower  depths  were  composed 
of  water.  Wherever  men  sank  a  well,  if  only 
they  dug  deep  enough,  they  were  almost  sure  to 

223 


224  THE  EARTH'S  INTERIOR. 

liit  at  last  upon  some  spring  or  other,  running 
tlirongli  a  vein  in  tlie  lower  strata.  Hence  the 
conception  of  "  the  waters  that  are  under  the 
earth,"  admitted  as  a  mere  current  expression  into 
the  text  of  Scripture  —  much  as  other  current  ex- 
l)ressions,  like  "sunrise"  and  "sunset,"  have  been 
si)nihirly  admitted  into  the  same  text  —  came  to 
have  a  wide  vogue,  and  to  be  regarded  as  possess- 
ing some  sort  or  shadow  of  scientific  importance. 
In  reality,  of  course,  the  water  that  rises  more  or 
less  iu  wells  is  merely  the  same  which  fell  as  rain 
on  the  adjacent  country,  or  on  neigliboring  hill- 
tops, and  which,  after  sinking  in  and  finding  its 
level  downward,  is  tapped  somewhere  at  a  point 
below  its  highest  surface,  so  as  to  fill  a  well,  or 
even,  in  certain  circumstances,  to  rise  as  a  free 
spring  or  fountain  to  the  toj)  of  the  boring.  But 
the  total  amount  of  water  thus  existing  in  a  free 
condition  within  the  earth's  body  at  any  given 
time  must  be  but  a  mere  insignilicant  fraction  ; 
the  vastly  greater  part  of  the  whole  sum  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  must  always  be  that  collected  in 
our  oceans,  seas,  lakes,  and  rivers. 

As  soon,  however,  as  the  true  position  of  our 
earth  in  the  solar  system  came  to  be  generally 
recognized  by  scientilic  thinkers,  it  became  clear 
at  once  that  the  notion  of  an  aqueous  interior 
could  not  for  a  moment  be  accepted  as  possible ; 
to  use  a  convenient  and  appropriate  colloquialism, 


THE  EARTH'S  INTERIOR.  225 

the  idea  would  not  bold  water.  A  globe  of  solid 
rock  reimsiijg  upon  a  ligbt  walery  nucleus  is  a 
clearly  impossible  physical  conception  —  the  crust 
would  have  to  sink  to  the  centre  under  the  influ. 
ence  of  gravity,  exactly  as  a  stone  in  the  same 
circumstances  sinks  to  the  bottom  of  a  sea  or 
river.  One  niiglit  as  well  expect  to  find  rocky 
islets  floating  on  tht;  sea,  as  continents  and  the 
whole  solid  shell  of  earth  floating  idly  upon  an 
aqueous  centre.  At  the  same  time  a  good  many 
causes  began  to  lead  men  to  suspect  that  the 
interior  of  the  earth  possesses  a  far  higher  tem- 
perature than  the  cooled  and  solid  surface.  It  is 
known  that,  when  we  dig  deej)  below  the  level  of 
the  soil,  as  in  mines  or  well-boring,  the  thermom- 
eter rises  higher  and  higher  in  a  fixed  proportion 
according  to  the  depth  to  which  we  have  pene- 
trated. Pushing  this  calculation  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  it  was  soon  suggested  that  at  four  or 
five  miles  below  the  surfiice  the  temperature  must 
rise  to  something  like  white  heat ;  we  must  imag- 
ine the  earth  to  possess  a  fiery  core,  surrounded 
by  a  cooling,  solidifying  exterior.  Again,  the 
existence  of  volcanoes,  geysers,  and  hot  springs, 
all  coming  evidently  from  within  the  bowels  of 
our  planet,  and  all  apparently  bearing  witness  to 
a  very  hot  and  igneous  origin,  supported  the 
same  rising  theory.  Once  more,  it  was  plausibly 
argued  that  pressure  by  itself  produces  heat ;  and 


226  THE  EARTH'S  INTERIOR. 

the  enormous  pressure  of  millions  upon  millions  of 
tons  of  solid  rock,  and  square  miles  upon  miles  of 
profound  ocean,  must  aloiie  suffice  to  account  for 
a  gradual  increase  of  temperature  at  every  few 
hundred  yards  we  dig  down  into  the  eartli's  inte- 
rior. On  these  and  many  other  similar  grounds, 
such  as  the  evidence  of  the  igneous  origin  of 
granite  and  of  many  other  extruded  rocks,  it  was 
fairly  concluded  among  men  of  science  that  the 
earth's  core  must  be  regarded  as  in  a  liigh  state  of 
white  heat.  The  rocks  that  most  often  underlie 
all  the  others,  or  that  liave  been  poured  upward 
and  t  :tward  through  all  the  otliers,  came  up  at  first 
as  molten  masses,  it  was  reasonable  to  conclude 
that  the  other  rocks  which  still  form  the  solid 
centre  were  even  now  in  a  like  condition  of  melt- 
ing heat —  were,  in  fact,  one  vast  and  motionless 
internal  sea  of  liquid  fire,  a  genuine  volcanic  Med- 
iterranean. 

When  first  astronomy  began  to  busy  itself  seri- 
ously with  the  origin  and  history  of  our  sun  and 
his  family,  this  idea  of  the  molten  centre  gained 
ground  still  further  every  day,  because  of  its  ap- 
parently strict  accordance  with  all  that  was  other- 
wise known  or  conjectured  of  the  solar  system. 
Every  sun  and  every  planet,  according  to  the 
luminous  views  of  Kant  and  Laplace,  started  in 
life  as  a  condensing  haze-cloud,  a  mere  scattered 
mass  of  very  thin  and  perhaps  gaseous  material, 


THE  EARTH'S  INTERIOR.  227 

gradually  gathering  around  a  central  point.  ]5ut, 
as  tlie  atoms  of  which  it  was  composed  fell  to- 
gether towards  their  common  centre,  under  the 
inihience  of  gravitation,  their  mutual  impact 
heated  them  to  a  white  heat  just  as  a  piece  of  cold 
iron  on  a  bhicksmith's  anvil  is  often  heated  red- 
hot  by  continued  blows  from  the  heavy  hammer. 
In  its  earlier  stages,  therefore,  every  world  must 
have  passed  through  a  fiery  and  stormy  youth  \ 
and  as  it  grew  older,  it  must  have  grown  colder, 
on  the  outside,  at  least,  by  the  constant  radiation 
of  its  surface-heat.  A  poker  raised  to  a  ruddy  gh)w 
in  the  fire  —  to  take  a  domestic  analogy  familiar 
to  every  one  —  cools  slowly  as  soon  as  it  is  re- 
moved from  the  burning  coals,  but  the  outside 
grows  cold  before  the  inside,  and  in  a  large  mass, 
such  as  a  solid  cannon-ball,  the  difference  of  tem- 
perature between  surface  and  centre  may  some- 
times be  very  marked  and  conspicuous.  Some  of 
the  planets,  as  we  know  by  the  evidence  of  the 
telescope,  are  still  in  their  primitive  heated  condi- 
tion; the  fires  of  their  youth  have  not  yet  burnt 
themselves  out,  and  they  have  not  yet  settled 
themselves  down,  like  our  own  earth,  to  a  sober, 
staid,  and  respectable  middle  age.  Passionate 
storms  still  shake  thera  violently  to  their  very 
core,  and  nebulous  vapors  hiilo  their  faces  from 
lis  with  a  fiery  mist.  Geology  shows  us  that  our 
own  earth  —  that  solid  earth  upon  wliosc  stability, 


22S  THE  EARTirs  INTERIOR. 

in  spite  of  occasional  earthquakes  and  volcanic 
eru])tions,  the  inhabitants  of  this  peaceful  and 
eas^'-going  planet  so  greatly  pride  themselves, 
once  passed,  for  its  own  part,  through  a  similar 
stage  of  molten  rock,  and  only  slowly  settled 
down,  like  all  the  rest  of  us,  into  a  placid,  calm, 
and  respected  old  age.  It  was  natural  to  conclude, 
therefore,  that  the  earth's  interior  consisted  really 
still  of  liquid  fire,  and  that  the  solid  crust,  which 
composes  to  most  of  us  all  that  we  ever  think  of  as 
the  world,  was  the  cooled  surface  of  an  internally 
igneous  and  distracted  mass.  We  walk,  said  geol- 
ogists, with  perfect  confidence,  and,  on  the  whole, 
justly  so,  upon  the  thin  and  quivering  caked  ex- 
terior of  an  indescribably  hot  and  molten  globe. 
A  few  miles  of  hardened  outside,  at  best,  divide  us 
from  a  vast  core  of  unspeakable  fire  ten  thousand 
times  hotter  than  the  hottest  furnace.  And  that 
the  seething  mass  thus  pictured  as  the  earth's 
main  body  was  really  liquid,  a  tremendous  sea  of 
white  hot  molten  material,  was  until  lately  the  al- 
most universal  belief,  expressed  or  implied,  of  all 
the  greatest  and  most  learned  geologists. 

Still  later,  however,  new  trains  of  physical 
reasoning  were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  correc- 
tion and  rectification  of  this  somewhat  crude  and 
unfixed  idea.  For  if  the  earth's  molten  centre 
were  really  liquid,  how  was  it,  people  asked,  that 
the  solid  crust  was  able  to  float  upon  it,  instead 


THE  EARTH'S  INTERIOR.  229 

of  sinking  through  it?  Consider  the  vast  extent 
of  the  pressure  exercised  by  whole  solid  square 
miles  of  rock  and  mountain  superimposed  upon  a 
liquid  central  body.  Could  any  one  believe  for  a 
moment  that  even  a  single  mountain,  much  less 
a  whole  hemisphere,  could  be  so  supported  upon 
a  sea  of  liquid?  This  vast  weight  ft)rever  press- 
ing down  upon  the  hot  interior  must  surely  reduce 
it,  however  high  its  temperature,  to  the  condition 
of  a  solid,  by  mere  force  of  gravity  and  condensa- 
tion. You  can  press  a  gas  till  it  assumes  the  form 
first  of  a  liquid  and  then  of  a  solid ;  you  can  reduce 
carbonic  acid  itself,  which  looks  and  feels  as  thin 
as  air,  first  to  the  condition  of  a  body  like  water, 
and  then  to  a  solid  resembling  ice.  If  the  mere 
slight  pressure  which  man's  mechanical  appliances 
enable  him  to  effect  can  produce  such  solidifj'ing 
results  as  this,  what  are  we  to  believe  must  be 
done  by  the  crushing  weight  of  whole  seas  and 
continents,  hemispheres  and  oceans,  piled  on  top 
of  the  supposed  fiery  Mediterranean?  No;  the 
idea  of  a  liquid  centre  to  the  earth  becomes  clearly 
impossible  when  viewed  in  the  rational  light  of 
modern  physics ;  however  great  the  original  heat 
due  to  the  falling  together  of  the  earth's  atoms, 
and  that  due  to  the  pressure  itself,  the  centre 
cannot  even  so  be  regarded  as  liquid;  it  must  be 
squeezed  solid  by  the  enormous  mass  of  mountains 
and  seas  imposed  on  top  of  it,  with  their  incalcu- 


\ 


230  THE  EARTH'S  INTERIOR. 

lable  weight.  Hence  the  last  word  of  modern 
science  on  the  existing  condition  of  our  eartli's 
centre  seems  to  be  just  tliis;  our  planet  consists 
of  a  cool  and  fairly  solid  but  lighter  crust  poised 
upon  the  top  of  a  very  rigid,  hard,  and  immensely 
hot  core,  which  would  be  liquid  and  molten,  but 
for  the  unspeakable  pressure  of  the  thick  crust 
piled  heavily  above  it. 

It  is  a  great  comfort  to  think  that,  after  all  — 
at  least  as  far  as  science  has  yet  gone  —  we  need 
not  give  up  the  solid  earth  which  we  all  flatter 
ourselves  is  so  safe  and  secure  beneath  our  feet. 
True,  science,  like  the  world  itself,  is  always 
moving,  and  it  has  an  awkward  habit,  in  all  these 
abstruse  matters,  of  unsaving  to-morrow  what  it 
told  us  yesterday.  Just  as  we  are  beginning  to 
think  we  have  really  learnt  its  last  lesson  quite 
correctly,  it  comes  upon  us  unawares  with  some 
strange  and  contradictory  fresh  solution,  upsetting 
all  the  ideas  we  have  been  one  moment  before 
congratulating  ourselves  upon  having  fairly  mas- 
tered. But  for  the  present,  at  least,  we  may  go 
to  sleep  in  comfort,  as  men  still  do  upon  the  flanks 
of  a  volcano,  consoling  ourselves  with  the  reassur- 
ing thouglit  that  if  our  planet  is  all  one  fiery  mass 
within,  it  is,  at  least,  of  solid,  not  of  liquid  fire. 
And,  indeed,  this  conclusion,  like  most  other  final 
conclusions,  has  a  great  concinnity  and  neatness 
about  it.     For,  if  we  regard  the  world  as  a  whole, 


THE  EARTH'S  INTERIOR.  231 

we  sliall  see  that  the  liglitest  materials  in  its  com- 
position are  just  where  we  should  expect  them  to 
be  —  on  the  outside  —  and  the  heaviest,  on  tlie 
other  hand,  are  just  where  we  might  naturally 
look  to  find  them  —  at  the  bottom  and  near  the 
earth's  centre.  On  the  very  exterior  of  all,  sur- 
rounding our  globe  like  a  thick  but  light  envelope, 
comes  a  deep  layer  of  gaseous  matter,  the  air  or 
atmosphere,  thinner  and  lighter  as  we  rise  towards 
the  top,  on  mountain-summits  or  in  an  inflated 
balloon,  and  denser  and  heavier  near  the  solid  sur- 
face or  at  sea-level.  Next  to  this  outer  gaseous  coat 
comes  a  more  partial  envelope,  the  water  of  the 
ocean,  collected  into  the  profounder  hollows  of 
the  crust,  heavier  than  the  air,  but  lighter  than 
the  rocks  and  soil  which  form  the  solid  tertiary 
layer.  This  solid  tertiary  layer  itself,  we  may 
conclude,  is,  in  the  same  way,  lighter  and  less 
dense  than  the  yet  deei)er  inside ;  for,  when  the 
whole  mass  was  still  liquid  and  molten,  and  the 
ocean  existed  only  on  its  face  in  the  shadow}'  form 
of  steam  or  vapor,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that 
the  heavier  materials,  such  as  lead  and  mercury, 
would  sink,  for  the  most  part,  steadily  towards 
the  centre,  under  the  influence  of  gravitation, 
while  the  lighter,  which  compose  in  the  main  the 
existing  crust  —  largely  silicious  in  character — ■ 
would  float  on  to})  like  oil  on  water.  Thus,  we 
get  a  clear  mental  picture  of  our  earth  as  a  solid, 


232  THR  EARTH'S  INTERIOR. 

rigid,  cooling  body,  with  a  crust  occasionally  col- 
lapsing upon  the  shrinking  centre,  but  on  the  whole 
progressively  more  hard  as  we  move  from  the 
the  known  and  knowable  outside  toward  the  un- 
known core.  And,  whether  this  conception  be 
wholly  and  fully  correct  or  otherwise,  it  is  at  least 
some  consolation  to  reflect  that  we  shall  never  in 
all  probability  get  any  experimental  proof  to  the 
contrary.  That  is  the  best  of  all  such  cosmical 
speculations ;  if  you  are  wrong,  you  have,  at  any 
rate,  the  comfort  of  feeling  that  nobody  else  can 
be  much  wiser.  Volcanoes  and  earthquakes  may 
help  us  to  arrive  gradually  at  fuller  conceptions 
upon  this  abstruse  point.  The  constant  observa- 
tion of  Vesuvius  and  Etna,  the  examination  of 
extinct  ancient  craters,  and  even  the  result  of 
spectroscopic  analysis  in  other  stars,  may  also  as-* 
sist  us  in  coming  hereafter  to  a  final  conclusion. 
But,  on  the  whole,  it  is  at  least  probable  that  we 
shall  never  know,  with  absolute  certainty,  the 
exact  constitution  of  the  earth's  centre.  And  yet 
"  never  "  is  a  long  word.  Now  that  we  are  begin- 
ning to  analyze  the  sun,  and  to  determine  the 
component  elements  of  the  distant  haze-clouds,  it 
is  not  perhaps  too  much  to  expect  that  we  may 
some  day  decide  the  difficult  problem  of  the  earth's 
interior. 


*'^ 


XXT. 

NUTS  AND  NUTTING. 

In  all  the  hedge-rows  and  copses  of  England  the 
nutting  season  is  now  in  full  swing.  While  the 
lasses  with  their  wicket  baskets  are  busily  picking 
blackberries  for  market,  or  for  the  dom'3Stic  pre- 
serving-pot, the  lads  are  scrambling  up  banks  at 
the  risk  of  their  necks  after  Kentish  filberts,  or 
flinging  stones  recklessly  at  the  landlord's  trees 
for  the  great  husky  Spanish  chestnuts.  The 
filberts  are  mostly  too  precious  to  be  eaten  by  the 
finders  in  person  —  they  are  sold  for  the  dessert  of 
richer  people ;  but  the  common  beechnuts  have 
no  economical  value,  as  the  daily  papers  put  it; 
thej''  are  the  natural  prize  of  the  small  boy  who 
first  lights  upon  them,  and  they  are  enjoyed  with 
quite  as  much  gusto  by  the  young  discoverer  as 
the  daintiest  nuts  on  earth  in  wealthier  house- 
holds. You  have  to  hunt  a  good  deal  before  you 
get  your  reward  in  the  beechnut  industry ;  half 
the  husks  are  empty,  or  contain  only  sterile  seeds, 
and  it  is  not  more  than  one  or  two  fruits  in  .'\ 
dozen  that  one  can  really  eat  with  any  internal 

satisfaction.     But  the  taste  of  boys  is  easily  sat- 

233 


234  NUTS  AND  NUTTING. 

isfied,  and  beechnuts  probably  .afford  as  nnich 
I)leasure  to  the  Imman  race  in  modern  Enghmd  as 
all  the  costly  peaches,  apricots,  and  nectarines  iu 
the  whole  country  put  together. 

It  is  a  very  noticeable  fact  about  these,  our 
English  nuts,  native  or  acclimatized,  that  they 
have  in  every  case  a  prickly  or  else  a  bitter  and 
disagreeable  outer  covering.  Filberts,  as  we  all 
know,  are  enclosed  in  a  ragged-edged,  green 
envelope,  which  turns  brown  as  they  ripen,  and 
which  is  defensively  armed  with  tiny  hair-like 
prickles,  extremely  close-set  over  its  whole  sur- 
face. These  prickles  are  annoying  enough,  even 
to  our  hard  human  fingers,  in  certain  stages  of 
their  existence  ,  and  almost  everybody  has  noticed 
tliat  to  pick  green  filberts  is  a  very  disngreeable 
or  even  painful  operation.  But  the  filbert  is 
armed  not  so  much  against  the  dej)redations  of 
boys  and  men  as  against  the  obtrusive  little  teeth 
of  dormice  and  squirrels.  Now,  these  animals 
have  to  bite  a  hole  through  the  filbert  in  order 
to  get  at  it,  and  the  prickly  hairs  upon  its  surface 
are  intended,  to  a  great  extent,  as  protective 
against  such  tiny  woodland  enemies.  The  soft 
bare  skin  on  a  dormouse's  nose  is  easily  irritated 
by  the  stinging  bristles,  which  only  penetrate 
deeper  and  deeper  in  proportion  as  the  creature 
rubs  its  snout  against  the  branches  of  the  tree  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  them.     Nevertheless,  dormice 


NUTS  AND  NUTTING.  235 

live  almost  entirely  upon  cob-nuts,  and  manage  to 
outwit  the  hazels  by  getting  at  tliem  through  the 
open  end  as  tliey  grow  upon  the  boughs.  Very 
often  the  cunning  creatures  remove  the  whole 
inside  of  the  nut  without  loosening  it  at  all  from 
the  husky  envelope. 

The  nuthatch,  that  most  persistent  of  British 
birds,  is  also  a  great  foe  to  the  peace  of  mind  of 
the  filbert-tree.  Hazels  and  nuthatches,  in  fact, 
may  be  regarded  as  pre-established  enemies,  lil^e 
rabbits  and  ferrets,  or  hawks  and  sparrows.  But 
a  far  more  dreaded  creature  than  any  of  these  to 
the  filbert  is  the  common  nut-grub,  who  makes 
his  attack  in  a  more  insidious  manner,  entering 
the  nut  as  an  egg  while  it  is  yet  green  and  soft, 
and  slowly  eating  out  its  centre  before  it  has 
time  to  arrive  at  weeks  of  maturity.  It  is  partly 
as  a  protection  against  the  nut-grub  and  his  in- 
trusive mother,  no  doubt,  that  the  hazel  has  armed 
its  young  nuts  with  the  jagged  covering  and  the 
close  armor  of  defensive  hairs. 

It  is  just  the  same  with  all  our  other  British 
nuts;  they  are  each  protected  in  like  manner 
against  the  probable  depredations  of  their  most 
indefatigable  hereditary  foes.  The  prickly  outer 
rind  of  the  chestnut,  for  example,  enclosing  the 
brown  nuts  in  its  green  coat,  serves  to  keep  off 
the  squirrels  to  some  extent  —  at  least,  so  far  as 
to  allow  the  tree  to  seed  sufficiently.     The  beech 


236  NUTS  AND  NUTTUW. 

has  a  very  similar  prickly  covering  to  its  small 
triangular  fruits ;  while  in  the  walnut  the  bitter 
juice  of  the  outer  rind  is  quite  nasty  enough  to 
deter  at  once  any  intending  animal  foe.     In  the 
horse-chestnut,   not    only    is    the    outside    shell 
prickly,  but  the  actual  kernel  itself  is  also   in- 
tensely bitter,  and  slightly  poisonous ;  and  in  the 
acorn  the  mere  bitterness  of  the  nut  seems  almost 
sufficient  to  protect  it  from  serious  injury,  with- 
out the  need  for  any  external  armor  at  all.     Even 
here,  however,  the  little  scaly  cup  that  fits  upon 
the  softest  and   most  vulnerable  portion  of  the 
shell  is  evidently  meant  as  a  piece  of  defensive 
mail  against  the  attacks  of  the  ubiquitous  grubs. 
But  why  are  nuts  provided  with  these  defences 
against  animal  invasion  ?     Why  are  they  coated 
in  hard  shells,  or  covered  with  prickly  rinds,  or 
enclosed  in  bitter  envelopes,  or  insuied  against 
attack  by  coats  of  scaly  mail?    Are  they  not,  in 
fact,  intended  as  food  for  the  squirrels,  and  dor- 
mice, and  nuthatches,  and  pigs,  if  not  even  for 
the  ugly  little  grubs  and  burrowing  worms  them- 
selves ?     What  is  the  use  of  thus  protecting  them 
against  the  very  creatures  whose  natural  food  they 
seem  intended  to  provide?     Well,  the  answer  all 
depends  upon  which  point  of  view  you  happen  to 
take,  that  of  the  tree  or  that  of  the  squirrel.     We 
lordly  human  beings,  as  we  are  ourselves  confirmed 
nut-eaters,  sympathize  rather  with  the  aggressive 


NUTS  AND  NUTTING.  237 

aninical.  But  the  plant  lias  its  own  ideas  ui)on  tlie 
subject,  too ;  or,  to  speak  more  correetly,  it  has 
been  provided  with  means  of  defence  for  itself  in 
very  much  the  same  fashion  as  if  it  were  really  an 
animated  being,  capable  of  looking  after  its  own 
interests  and  protecting  its  young  seedlings.  Let 
us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  matter  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  oak  or  the  hazel,  and  consider  why 
it  is  necessary  that  their  nuts  should  thus  be  pro- 
tected from  the  persistent  attacks  of  their  he- 
reditary foes. 

To  us,  as  to  the  squirrels  and  dormice,  a  nut  is 
merely  a  nut  —  that  is  to  say,  a  toothsome  mor- 
sel, to  be  husked,  cracked,  eaten,  and,  in  due 
time,  properly  digested,  for  our  ow!i  use  cand  grat- 
ification only.  But  to  the  tree  on  which  it  grows 
it  is  something  far  more  interesting  and  important 
than  that.  It  is  a  seed,  the  predestined  ancestor 
of  future  generations  of  nuts,  and  the  hope  of  the 
species  throughout  all  prospective  ages.  It  has  to 
hand  down  all  the  qualities  and  properties  of  the 
parent-stock  to  the  young  seedlings  that  are  to 
come  after  it.  Now,  seeds  of  all  sorts  are  in  per- 
petual danger  of  being  eaten,  and  so  destroyed ; 
and  it  is  the  great  aim  of  the  plant,  so  to  speak,  to 
prevent  them  from  suffering  this  ignominious 
fate,  just  as  it  is  the  great  aim  of  the  parent  bird 
to  keep  its  eggs  from  being  devoured  by  snakes  or 
stolen  by  boys,  and  just  as  it  is  the  great  aim  of 


238  NUTS  AND  NUTTINO. 

the  parent  animal  to  preserve  its  young  from 
being  destroyed  by  their  natural  devourers. 
When  man  uses  a  seed  for  food,  as  in  the  case  oi 
wlieat  or  pease,  he  more  than  repays  the  plant  that 
bears  it  by  keeping  some  for  sowing,  and  by 
planting  it  in  the  best  prepared  soil  under  the 
most  propitious  circumstances.  But  tlie  lower 
animals  are  not  so  provident.  If  left  entirely  to 
themselves,  they  would  eat  up  every  seed  of  the 
plant  on  which  they  live,  and  so  exterminate  the 
very  species  upon  which  they  de[)end  for  suj)port. 
Doubtless,  this  result  does  now  and  again  liappea 
in  the  infinite  changes  and  chances  of  nature,  and 
then  both  plant  and  animal  must  necessarily  dis- 
appear, to  join  the  long  and  ever-increasing  roll  of 
extinct  species. 

As  a  rule,  a  certain  number  of  seeds  always  sur- 
vive, no  matter  how  much  they  may  be  persecuted 
by  animals ;  and  it  is  these  seeds  that  become  the 
parents  of  the  trees  or  plants  of  the  next  genera- 
tion, lumding  down  to  them  their  own  individual 
peculiarities.  Of  course,  the  larger  and  richer  the 
seeds  are,  the  more  likely  are  they  to  be  eaten, 
and  the  more  will  they  stand  in  need  of  some  ex- 
ternal protection  to  guard  them  against  the 
attacks  of  their  animal  foes.  Now,  a  nut  is  merely 
the  name  we  give  to  an  exceptionally  large  and 
rich  seed;  and  nuts  are  noticeable  for  the  ini- 
niense  number  of   protections   which   they   Lave 


NUTS  AND  NUTTING.  239 

accordingly  acquired  against  the  sliarp  teeth  of 
mice  and  squirrels  and  other  animals,  as  well  as 
against  certain  birds  and  the  larva)  of  insects.  In 
this  respect  nuts  differ  greatly  from  true  fruits,  in 
the  popular  sense  of  the  word.  For  a  fruit  —  for 
example,  a  plum  or  a  peach  —  is  a  seed-vessel  of 
which  we  eat  the  outer  pulp,  husk,  or  rind ;  but 
we  throw  away  the  actual  seed  or  kernel,  the  part 
from  which  the  young  tree  is  destined  to  be  pro' 
duced.  As  a  rule,  too,  even  in  fruits,  the  seed 
itself  is  more  or  less  carefully  protected.  Thus, 
in  the  peach,  the  kernel  is  enchased  in  a  very  solid 
wrinkled  shell ;  in  the  apple,  the  pips  are  sur- 
rounded for  safety  by  a  leathery  central  sack,  the 
core  ;  and  in  the  orange  they  are  not  only  cov- 
ered by  a  hard  skin,  but  are  also  themselves  in- 
tensely bitter  and  extremely  nasty.  So  that  even 
in  pulpy  fruits  we  are  always  more  or  less  pre- 
vented from  swallowing,  or  at  any  rate  from  digest- 
ing, the  true  seeds,  pii)s,  or  kernels. 

Nuts,  however,  are  fruits  in  which  the  eatable 
part  is  not  the  husk,  pulp,  or  outer  coat,  but  the 
true  seed  itself,  the  hope  and  stay  of  all  future 
nutty  generations.  Hence  it  becomes  very  im- 
portant for  these  large  and  rich  seeds  to  be  etfi- 
ciently  guarded  against  animal  depredators.  In 
the  tropics,  where  monkeys  abound,  it  is  needful 
for  the  nuts  to  withstand  in  some  cases,  at  least, 
those  cunning  and  active  little  animals,  which  are 


240  NUTS  AND  NUTTING. 

able  not  merely  to  pick  them  with  tlu  ir  hands  and 
crack  them  with  their  teeth,  but  even  to  use  a 
large  stone  as  a  hammer  to  force  them  open.  For 
this  reason,  in  tropical  countries  we  find  some 
trees,  like  the  cocoa-nut.  palm,  which  produce  ex- 
tremely large  and  hard  nuts  sufficient  to  baflle  in 
many  cases  the  clever  monkeys  themselves.  Yet 
even  the  cocoa-nuts  are  rifled  by  the  cocoa-nut 
crab,  who  hiserts  his  pincers  through  one  of  the 
three  holes  or  pores  at  the  top  of  the  nut,  and 
slowly  extracts  the  nutritious  kernel  piecemeal. 
There  are  other  tropical  kinds,  such  as  the  Brazil 
nut,  which  have  a  double  shell,  the  outer  one 
being  large  and  round,  like  the  cocoa-nut,  and  en- 
closing within  it  the  smaller  roughly  triangular 
nuts  with  whose  irregular  shapes  we  are  all  so 
familiar  on  our  own  dinner-tables.  The  queer 
corners  of  the  Brazil  nuts  are  of  course  due  to 
their  being  all  squeezed  up  against  one  another  as 
they  grow  inside  the  large  surrounding  outer 
shell.  The  toucans  and  hornbills,  the  huge  fruit- 
bats,  the  opossums,  and  the  numerous  big  tropical 
s(iuirrels  have  all,  no  doubt,  borne  their  own  sub- 
sidiary part  in  the  development  of  the  large 
and  hard-shelled  southern  nuts.  For,  as  only  the 
nuts  that  do  not  get  cracked  can  survive  to  grow 
u[)  into  ti'ces  from  one  generation  to  another,  all 
the  softer  forms  get  quickly  weeded  out  by  the 
constant  selective  action  of  the  nut-eating  animals. 


NUTS  AND  NUTTING.  241 

and  none  but  the  hardest  succeed  in  peacefully 
germinating  into  young  palms  or  nut-bearing 
trees. 

Our  English  nuts  all  display  the  characteristic 
signs  of  nuts  in  general  to  a  somewhat  less  marked 
extent,  but  still  very  noticeably.  While  most 
fruits  are  brightly  colored,  as  if  on  purpose  to  at- 
tract the  animals  by  whose  aid  they  are  finally 
dispersed,  most  nuts  are  green  as  long  as  they  re- 
main upon  the  tree,  so  as  to  escape  notice  among 
the  surrounding  foliage,  and  brown  as  soon  as 
they  are  ripe  enough  to  fall,  so  as  to  harmonize 
with  the  faded  leaves  and  dry  grass  and  dying 
bracken  underneath.  For,  just  as  it  is  advanta- 
geous to  the  fruit  to  be  eaten,  in  order  that  its 
seed  ma}'  be  more  surely  sown  away  from  the 
shade  of  the  parent  tree,  so  it  is  advantageous  to 
the  nut  to  escape  notice  and  not  to  be  eaten, 
since  to  eat  it  is  to  destroy  the  seed  which  the 
tree  has  produced  as  a  future  plant  of  its  own 
species.  It  is  for  this  protective  purpose  that  the 
walnut  possesses  its  bitter  and  nauseous  husk,  en- 
closing its  solid  shell ;  so  that  not  one  walnut  out 
of  ten  can  be  got  at  by  the  little  gnawing  animals 
who  perpetually  compass  its  destruction.  It  is  for 
this  purpose  that  the  cliestnut  has  acquired  its 
prickly  coat,  and  the  filbert  its  unpleasantly  hairy 
envelope.  And,  further  to  guard  against  the 
depredations  of  insects  in  particular,  the  inner  ker- 


242  NUTS  AND  NUTTING. 

nel  of  many  of  tliese  nuts  is  enclosed  in  a  brown 
or  scaly  skin,  which  in  the  fresh  walnut  is  quite 
disnc^reeable  enough  even  to  man  to  make  it  worth 
while  for  us  to  })ecl  our  walnuts  before  eating 
them.  Tlie  similar  inner  coat  of  the  almond  is 
familiar  to  all  of  us;  and  we  usually  look  upon  it 
merely  as  a  sort  of  accidental  distigurement,  put 
there  in  order  to  be  cleared  away  with  liot  water 
befoie  the  clean  wliite  almonds  are  mixed  with 
raisins  for  our  English  dessert-tables.  In  reality, 
it  is  there  in  order  to  preserve  the  almond  from 
the  little  worm  whom  we  sometimes  find  to  our 
chagrin  inside  the  husk  of  a  damaged  specimen. 
We  forgot  too  often,  in  our  blind  human  fashion, 
that  the  primary  })urpose  of  all  these  nuts  is  to 
serve  as  seeds  for  their  own  trees  ;  that  of  serving 
as  food  for  man  and  other  animals,  though  no 
doubt  the  most  important  from  our  own  personal 
point  of  view,  is,  after  all,  in  the  scheme  of  Nature, 
nothing  more  tlian  a  secondary  and  derivative  one. 
Before  man  was  created  at  all,  the  earth  brought 
forth  grass,  and  herb  yielding  seed  after  his  kind, 
and  tlie  tree  violdinjr  fruit,  whose  seed  was  in 
itself,  after  his  kind.  Tlie  iirst  use  of  the  seed  is 
as  a  seed ;  its  use  as  grain  or  food-stuff  is  sec- 
ondary only. 


XXIT. 

AMUSEMENTS. 


(( 


Life,"  said  a  genial  but  cynical  thinker,  with 
equal  wit  and  wisdom,  "would  be  really  quite  en- 
durable if  it  were  not  for  its  amusements."  How 
many  of  us,  in  middle  age  at  least,  have,  after  our 
own  humble  fashion,  come  to  exactly  the  same 
easy-going  conclusion  I  As  long  as  we  are  allowed 
to  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  our  way  unmolested, 
to  rise  in  the  morning  to  our  accustomed  tub,  to 
go  through  our  sober  round  of  wonted  duties,  to 
dine  off  our  leg  of  mutton  and  apple-pudding  at 
our  own  unpretending  domestic  table,  to  enjoy 
our  evening  pipe,  or  our  quiet  chat  over  the  knit- 
ting and  the  work-basket,  and  to  go  to  bed  deco- 
rously at  half-past  ten,  we  are,  in  our  peaceful, 
uneventful  fasliion,  perfectly  V  ippy  and  contented. 
But,  when  the  boys  and  girls  —  those  reckless 
disturbers  of  domestic  bliss  I  —  insist  upon  drag- 
ging us  off  for  a  month  or  so  into  comfortless 
lodgings  by  the  seaside,  or  pulling  us  by  both  arms 
to  the  inhospitable  summit  of  Mount  Washington, 
or  carrying  us  down  by  sheer  force  to  hear  a  wee[)- 
ing  melodrama  or  a  screaming   burlesque  at  the 

243 


244  AMUSEMENTS, 

Ambiguities  Theatre,  we  feel  in  our  hearts  that 
this  is  too  much,  and  that  we  can  get  along  very 
well  indeed  nowadays  without  amusements.  The 
ex-Khedive  of  Egypt,  to  be  sure  —  if  report  speaks 
true  —  was  a  sensible  tliou!]:li  somewliat  luxurious 
man  who  knew  how  to  combine  middle-aged  com- 
fort and  youthful  love  of  excitement  in  a  lordly 
fashion  only  possible  to  an  Oriental  despot.  He 
had  his  theatre  built  just  next  door  to  his  draw- 
ing-room., and  that  again  to  his  dining-room  ;  and 
the  players  —  or  artistes,  as  we  ought  to  call  them 
nowadays  —  were  compelled  to  hold  themselves 
always  in  readiness  after  dinner,  in  case  his  High- 
ness should  wish  to  listen  to  the  drama  or  the 
opera.  As  soon  as  dessert  was  finished,  the  luxuri- 
ous Viceroy  would  stroll  carelessly  into  the  adjoin- 
ing apartment,  compose  himself  peacefully  in  his 
easy-chair,  light  his  cigarette  to  promote  diges- 
tion, and  give  the  word  to  one  of  liis  attendants, 
"Let  us  have  some  Offenbach  I  "  In  ten  minutes 
the  curtain  which  formed  one  side  of  the  saloon 
would  rise  u})on  the  Grand  Duchess  of  Gerolstein, 
and  the  Khedive  would  sit  solitary,  or  surrounded 
only  by  his  suite,  watching  the  progress  of  tlie 
whole  piece  from  the  comfortable  cushions  of  his 
own  arm-chair.  That  was  a  princely  Eastern  way 
of  taking  one's  amusements  quietl}',  and  not  to 
be  easily  compassed  in  our  Western  societies. 
Whether  the  actors  and  actresses  found  this  sort 


AMUSEMENTS.  24.^ 

of  one-man  audience  inspiriting  and  enconniging 
to  their  professional  efforts  is  of  course  quite  an- 
other matter. 

But  for  the  respectable  middle-aged  citizen  or 
citizeness  in  these  modern  States  of  America  to 
get  up  after  tea  or  dinner,  as  the  case  may  be,  and 
go  off  seeking  amusement  at  any  of  the  recog- 
nized establishments  supposed  to  purve}''  that 
commodity  to  our  towns  and  cities,  is  really  too 
preposterous  and  serious  an  undertaking.  If  you 
belong  to  the  wealtliier  class  which  dines  sumptu- 
ously at  seven  every  day,  you  have  to  rush  awiiy 
from  your  claret  and  your  peaches,  leaving  your 
dinner  half  digested,  and  drive  down  in  hot  haste 
to  the  centre  of  town,  just  in  time  to  find  the  sec- 
ond act  half  finished  as  you  enter  tlie  theatre.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  you  belong  to  the  far  larger 
body  of  American  citizens  which  takes  its  tea  at 
half-past  five,  and  looks  forward  to  a  light  supper 
at  the  end  of  the  evening's  entertainment,  you 
have  to  wait  about  for  an  hour  before  the  portico 
until  the  doors  open,  and  then  take  your  chance 
of  getting  in  with  the  rush  in  that  great  scramble 
for  places  where  miglit  is  still  right,  and  where 
the  hindmost  is  still  devoted  by  popular  politeness 
to  an  unmentionable  personage.  These  things  are 
all  very  well  in  their  way  while  one  is  yet  sweet 
one-and-twenty ;  but,  as  time  begins  to  grizzle  the 
beard,  and  faint  lines  pucker  up  the   once  smooth 


246  AMUHEMEXTS. 

and  unclouded  forehead,  middle-aged  man  has  his 
nascent  doubts  as  to  whetlier,  after  all,  the  game  is 
now  really  worth  the  candle.  He  finds  it  harder 
and  harder  to  tear  liimself  away  from  home ;  tlie 
attraction  grows  weaker  and  weaker,  as  the  scien- 
tific men  wonld  put  it,  while  the  resistance  to  he 
overcome  grows  greater  and  greater  with  every 
winter.  A  dance  used,  to  be  a  delightful  thing 
indeed  before  one  was  married,  and  when  one  had. 
a  chance  of  meeting  Amelia  there  for  half  an  hour; 
but,  now  that  one  sees  Amelia  every  day  from 
morning  to  niglit,  and  goes  to  the  dance  only  for 
the  sake  of  one's  danghters,  why,  the  amusement 
of  the  thing  is  not  somehow  quite  so  apparent  as 
it  used  to  be  some  twenty  years  ago ! 

On  the  other  hand,  maturer  age  undoubtedly 
gives  quite  as  much  as  it  takes  away,  even  in  this 
very  matter  of  amusements.  While  we  are  young, 
we  go  out  of  our  way  too  much  to  get  ourselves 
amused ;  we  are  always  seeking  out  pleasure  and 
excitement,  always  tr^-ing  to  find  some  fresh  op- 
portunity of  agreeable  stimulation.  Rut  it  is  a 
well  known  observation  that  the  more  directly  we 
aim  at  pleasure,  the  more  does  pleasure  seem  to 
flit  and  evade  us.  She  is  a  coquette,  that  flies  if 
you  pursue,  but  coyly  seeks  you  if  you  pay  her 
scant  attention'.  This  is  a  truth  that  middle  age 
alone  begins  thoroughly  to  appreciate.  The  best 
amusements  are  those  that  come  of  themselves,  as 


AMUSEMENTS.  247 

it  were  —  those  that  obtrude  tliemselves  upon  us, 
and  grow  on  us  slowly  as  the  years  grow  fleeter. 
Youth  is  always  in  a  hurry  to  enjoy  itself;  it 
wants  to  find  out  a  thousand  new  forms  of  amuse- 
ment, to  exhaust  the  whole  repertory  of  nature  at 
a  single  sitting.  It  must  have  balls,  dances,  pic- 
nics, lawn-tennis,  theatres,  operas,  entertainments, 
concerts ;  it  must  go  to  Newport  and  Saratoga, 
Long  Branch  or  Coney  Island,  as  its  tastes  or  its 
means  permit  it.  Youth  must  live  forever  in  a 
constant  whirl  of  excitement;  it  must  boat,  hunt, 
shoot,  fish;  it  must  travel,  it  must  hurry,  it  must 
scurry,  it  must  whirl ;  whatever  it  does,  it  must 
never  vegetate.  It  loves  excursions,  great  gatlier- 
ings,  books,  life,  movement,  the  rapid  joy  of  event- 
ful existence.  All  meditative  amusements  it  votes 
"slow,"  and  finds  boring.  If  it  goes  to  the  sea- 
side, it  demands,  not  quiet  and  relaxation,  not  sea 
and  sky  and  sails  and  sea-gulls,  but  a  crowded 
promenade,  a  pier  where  the  band  discourses  lively 
music,  and  a  stretch  of  yellow  sands  covered  with 
bathing-machines,  nursemaids,  minstrels,  Jiired 
donkeys,  and  toy  goat-carriages.  Like  Blanche 
Amory,  it  requires  emotions.  Nothing  but  life 
will  satisfy  ife;  and  by  life  it  means  noise,  bustle, 
gayety,  and  visible  crowds  of  like-minded  hu- 
manity. 

Middle  age,  on  the  contrary,  has  learned  to  reap 
the  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye  from  many  things  which 


248  AMUSEMENTS. 

youth  passes  by  with  supercilious  contempt  or 
silent  inattention.  Fields  and  trees  have  grown 
more  dear  to  it.  A  cathedial  can  afford  the  mid- 
dle-aged mind  far  more  real  and  lasting  pleasure 
than  any  amount  of  gayety  used  to  do  in  earlier 
j  years  of  feverish  excitement.  A  stroll  through  a 
country  lane  acquires  fresh  powers  of  interesting 
us  with  every  added  summer ;  a  holiday  spent 
peacefully  by  lonely  sea  or  untrodden  mountain 
reveals  unexpected  faculties  of  enjoyment  in  our- 

!  selves  with  every  recurring  season.     We  find  the 
world  less   exciting   than   of   old,  it  is  true,  but 
'\   more  beautiful  and  more  interesting  each  year  as 

\  we  pass  the  line  of  thirty ;  we  pitch  our  hopes 
\  lower,  and  we  discover  that  the}''  are  more  often 
fairly  realized.  We  do  not  go  out  of  our  wa}-^  so 
much  to  seek  amusement;  and,  behold,  amuse- 
ment comes  out  of  her  way  to  seek  us !  The 
flowers  in  the  garden  have  almost  as  much  plot- 
interest  for  us  as  a  good  novel ;  the  colors  on  the 
clouds  please  us  quite  as  well  as  the  Salon  and  the 
Academy  ;  tlie  drama  of  life  worked  out  by  our 
friends  and  our  children  has  tragedy  and  comedy 
in  it  sufficient  to  keep  us  fully  occupied  without 
such  frequent  visits  to  the  mimic  theatre.  We 
stay  at  home  more,  and  find  in  books  and  conver- 
sation and  household  duties  a  calm  pleasure  that 
we  could  not  have  appreciated  in  our  noisier  and 
more    rackety  younger    existence.      Life    grows 


AMUSEMENTS,  249 

grayer,  some  people  tliiiik,  as  forty  approaches. 
Nay,  not  so  ;  it  grows  calmer  and  more  peaceable  ; 
^nd  at  the  same  time  it  grows  more  unselfish. 
Thinking  less  about  ourselves,  we  learn  to  think 
more  about  other  people  ;  our  pleasures  come  to 
lie  more  and  more  in  giving  pleasure  to  those 
around  us.  When  we  look  forward  to  a  holiday, 
we  look  forward  no  longer  to  tlie  delights  we  are 
ourselves  to  experience,  but  to  the  delight  of 
giving  the  boys  a  ride  over  the  grassy  hills  and 
taking  the  girls  to  the  Cliristmas  pantomime. 
Those  are  pleasures  of  which  it  is  harder  to  rob 
us,  and  which  we  could  not  have  appreciated  so 
much  in  the  old  days  when  Plancus  was  consul. 

Moreover,  it  is  incidental  to  the  active  pursuits 
of  pleasure  that,  when  we  aim  at  it  too  directly,  \ 
we  feel  alwa3^s  the  bitterness  of  disappointment,  j 
and  so  become  cynical   and  complaining.     It  is 
young  men  and  young  women  who  write  all  tlie 
Byronic   poetry   of    blighted    hopes   and   blasted 
aspirations;  it  is  very  young  people  who  discover 
that  existence  is  a  mistake,  and  that  the  true  func- 
tion of  the  poet  is  to  write  tlirenodies.     "  Life," 
said  the  American  boy  on  his  tenth  birthday,  ''isn't 
all  that  it's  cracked  up  to  be."     "The  world  is 
hollow,"  says  the   little   girl-pessimist  in  Punchy 
"and  my  doll  is  stuffed  with  sawdust."     That  is 
the  natural   reaction    from  a  view  of  life  which 
considers  that  it  ought  all  to  be  made  up  of  excit- 


250  AMUSEMENTS. 

ing  adventures  —  as  the  American  humorist  puts 
it,  "of  beer  and  skittles."  Maturer  ^ge  can  afford 
to  do  without  tliese  romantic  sorrows.  As  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang,  the  poet  of  cahner  3^ears,  amusingly 
writes :  — 

Oil,  foolish  youth,  untimely  wise! 

Oh,  phiintoins  of  tlio  sickly  mind! 
What  ?    Not  content  with  seas  and  skies, 

With  rainy  clouds  and  southern  wind, 
With  common  cares  and  faces  kind, 

With  pains  and  joys  each  morning  brought? 
Ah,  old  and  worn  and  tired,  wc  fmd 

Life's  more  amusing  than  we  thought ! 

The  last  line  sums  up  in  a  playful  fashion  the 
common-sense  philosophy  of  ten  thousand  ordi- 
nary middle-aged  people. 

And  yet  it  is  of  very  little  use  to  rail  at  amuse- 
uients  in  the  midst  of  an  age  which  is  probably 
more  amused  than  any  other  since  the  beginning 
of  all  things.  Every  day  sees  more  and  more  places 
of  amusement  of  every  sort  opened  throughout 
town  and  country.  The  number  of  theatres  built 
during  the  last  ten  years  is  something  prodigious. 
The  fetes  and  galas  are  forever  on  the  increase. 
If  the  old-fashioned  fair  has  been  dying  out,  the 
modern  benefit-club  and  the  new-fashioned  festival 
have  taken  its  place  even  in  the  country  village. 
Lawn-tennis  has  supplanted  croquet,  and  tourna- 
ments—  with  a  difference  —  have  once  more  come 
into  vogue.     Our  watering-places  increase  apace  ; 


AMUSEMENTS.  251 

and  so  do  our  winter  stations.  As  to  our  minor 
watering-places,  their  name  is  T^^gion.  It  is  an 
ago  strenuoiuly  bent  ui)on  getting  amused;  and 
it  will  certainly  get  itself  amused  if  money  and 
buildings  and  api)liances  will  liel[)  it  at  all  in  that 
matter.  It  will  have  bands  and  spas  and/^^<'S  and 
gardens  and  plays  and  races  and  games  and  galas 
to  its  heart's  content.  It  will  have  fireworlvs  and 
monster  meetings  and  centenaries  and  musical 
festivals  and  i)rocessions  and  demonstrations  and 
excursions,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  It  will  run  over 
all  the  world  in  search  of  amusement,  and,  when 
it  is  tired,  it  will  come  back  at  last  to  "seas  and 
skies,"  castles  and  abbeys,  lanes  and  flowers.  But, 
let  middle  age  preach  as  it  will,  youth  will  have 
its  cakes  and  ale  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 


XXIII. 

THE  PllIDE  OF  IGNORANCE. 

We  often  hear  a  great  deal  about  tlie  pride  of 
knowledge  or  tlie  pride  of  intellect ;  and  perhaps 
knowledge  and  intellect  sometimes  are  proud, 
though,  to  be  sure,  tliose  who  have  mixed  most 
with  the  really  greatest  and  wisest  men  generally 
find  iheni  marked  instead  by  profound  modesty, 
deep  humility,  Jind  extreme  caution  in  the  exjjres- 
sion  of  opinion.  But  people  do  not  usually  lay 
enough  stress  upon  that  opposite  and  singularly 
topsy-turvy  form  of  pride,  the  pride  of  ignoiance, 
which  nevertheless  does  really  exist  and  flourish 
amongst  us  in  a  very  high  degree  of  development 
and  perfection.  Nothing  is  commoner  than  to 
hear  the  hard-headed  practical  man  plume  him- 
self openly  upon  his  own  undisguised  want  of 
knowledge.  "Scientific  people  will  tell  yf)U  so- 
and-so,"  he  says,  patronizingly,  with  a  little  depre- 
catory wave  of  his  hand,  like  Mr.  Podsnap  ;  '^  I 
dare  say  they're  quite  right.  They  may  be ;  I 
know  nothing  about  it.  But,  for  my  part,  Vm 
not  in  the  least  scientific.  I  don't  pretend  to 
know  anything  at  all  upon  the  subject."    And  then 

252 


THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE.  253 

lie  stands  with  his  back  to  tlie  fire,  and  .assumes 
a  profound  air  of  moral  virtue,  as  tliongh  there 
were  really  something  very  fine  and  noble  in  his 
determination  to  know  absolutely  nothing  about 
the  matter  in  question.  He  is  every  bit  as  proud 
of  his  ignorance  as  the  wisest  man  is  proud  of  his 
knowledge.  Every  bit  as  proud,  do  we  say?  If 
the  truth  be  told,  ten  thousand  times  prouder;  for 
true  greatness  is  always  unassuming.  It  knows 
enougli  to  know  how  little  it  knows ;  it  has  learnt 
the  vastiiess  of  God's  universe  and  the  i)ettiness 
i  and  feebleness  of  the  human  understanding  ;  and 
/  so  it  is  neither  proud  of  its  knowledge  on  the  one 
\  hand,  nor  of  its  necessary  limitations  and  deficien- 
cies on  the  other. 

But  why  are  people  proud  of  their  ignorance? 
What  good  thing  can  there  possibly  be  in  the 
Avant  of  knowledge  that  any  human  being  could 
ever  be  proud  of?  At  first  sight  it  is  hard  indeed 
to  see  the  explanation ;  but  perhaps  it  lies  in  two 
deep-seated  and  fundamental  principles  of  human 
nature.  In  the  fust  place,  people  are  almost  .always, 
in  their  heart  of  hearts,  i)roud  of  themselves  from 
top  to  bottom.  They  are  proud  of  their  very 
weaknesses  and  failings.  The  ugly  man  is  proud 
that  he  is  not  one  of  those  conceited  jackanapes 
that  strut  about  the  streets  and  exhibit  their  fine 
teeth  whenever  they  speak,  with  their  inane 
smile  and  grinning  stupidity.     The  miser  is  proud 


254  THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE. 

that  lie  is  not  a  wretched  fool  of  a  spendthrift; 
the  spendthrift  is  jn-oiid  that  he  is  not  a  horrid 
old  curmudgeon  of  a  miser.  The  drunkard  prides 
himself  on  not  being  a  nasty  straight-laced  teeto- 
taler;  the  libertine  prides  himself  on  not  being  one 
of  those  ugl3%  sour-faced  oily  hypocrites  who  look 
as  if  they  had  swallowed  a  poker  in  their  youth 
and  never  digested  it.  So,  it  is  pndjable,  the 
ignorant  man  i)rides  himself  on  not  being  a  dry 
stick  of  a  pedant  —  on  knowing  the  world  and 
men  and  things,  not  mere  dull  and  empt}'  useless 
book-knowledge  —  on  rising  superior  to  those 
poor  fools  of  scientific  men  wlio  think  they  are 
so  prodigiously  well  up  in  ever\'lhing  because 
they  know  a  bit  of  mathematics  or  a  trifle  of 
chemistry.  Human  vanity  is  so  inexplicably 
deep  that  it  will  find  out  a  virtue  in  every  form 
of  vice  and  every  kind  of  deficiency,  provided 
oidy  they  are  its  own  personal  ones.  Then, 
again,  in  the  second  i)lace,  there  is  the  undoubted 
fact  that  practical  men  and  the  world  at  large 
immensely  underrate  the  real  importance  of  accu- 
rate knowledge.  They  get  so  many  things  al- 
ready done  for  them,  in  our  extremely  comjdex 
civilization,  by  tlie  men  who  really  do  know,  that 
they  t\)iget  how  very  ill  they  would  actually  fare 
if  it  were  not  for  the  existence  of  the  exact  peo- 
ple whom  they  so  often  des})ise  and  laugh  at. 
"At  what  o'clock  will  the  moon  rise  to-night?" 


THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE.  255 

asks  the  farmer  wlio  has  to  take  a  h)iij]r  cross- 
countrv  drive  hy  lonely  lanes  on  a  dark  eveniiiix. 
*^0h,  look  in  the  almanac,  and  you'll  lind  it  in  a 
minute  1  "  "  When  will  the  tide  be  high  enougii 
to  cross  the  bar?  "  asks  tlie  sailor  off  tiie  mouth  of 
a  dilHcult  harbor.  ''  Oh,  look  into  the  sailing- 
directions,  and  you'll  see  it  put  down  plain  and 
simple  in  black  and  white  for  you !  "  They  forget 
that  the  calculations  tlie  result  of  which  they  can 
thus  so  easily  secure  were  made  for  their  use 
beforehand  by  long  hours  of  patient  work  on  the 
part  of  trained  and  educated  assistants  at  Trinity 
House  or  Washington  Observatory.  Thus  igno- 
rance continues  to  despise  knowledge  through 
mere  oblivion  of  its  own  indebtedness. 

The  fact  is,  every  action  and  every  movement 
of  our  own  lives,  in  the  midst  of  our  high  existing 
civilizations,  are  dependent  in  a  thousand  ways 
upon  remote  and  difficult  scientific  calculations, 
the  very  nature  and  special  usefulness  of  which 
most  of  us  are  absolutely  incapable  of  compre- 
hending. No  ship,  for  example,  could  sail  tlie 
sea  to  bring  us  the  tea  of  China  or  the  wool  of 
Australia,  English  hardware,  or  West  Indian 
sugar,  were  it  not  for  abstruse  and  coinplieated 
mathematical  calculations,  reckonings  of  latitude 
and  longitude,  of  sunrise  and  sunset,  of  transits 
of  Venus  and  lunar  eclipses,  of  right  ascension 
and  declination  and  horizontal  parallax  and  semi- 


256  THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE. 

(liaineter,  and  lialf  a  dozen  other  minute  meas- 
urements, all  unknown  even  by  name  to  sailor 
and  boatswain,  but  duly  entered  by  anticipation 
for  captain  and  mate  in  the  Nautical  Almanac  by 
the  continuous  labor  of  a  hundred  skilful  and  pro- 
found astronomers.  The  very  men  who  sail  the 
sea  in  safety  by  the  aid  of  those  prodigious 
and  learned  calculations  would  probably  be  the 
first  to  deride  and  despise  the  philosophers  upon 
whose  accuracy  their  lives  depend,  as  poor 
foolish  star-gazers  and  absurd  theorists.  "  What 
good  does  it  do  us  to  weigh  the  moon  or  to  meas- 
ure the  distance  from  here  to  the  sun?"  ask 
hundreds  wlio  do  not  know  that  without  such 
knowledge  we  cannot  make  our  way  securely 
across  the  Pacific,  and  that  an  error  in  tlie  deter- 
mination of  some  small  fact  about  the  satellites  of 
Saturn  may  cost  us  the  lives  of  many  seafaring 
men  and  the  cargoes  of  many  valuable  ships, 
wrecked  through  erroneous  observations  on  the 
reefs  and  barriers  of  the  New  Guinea  passage  or 
the  Bahama  channel.  What  can  be  more  absurd 
than  exjjorimenting  upon  sparks  from  amber  or  a 
cat's  back  ?  And  yet  ex[)eriments  of  the  sort,  so 
seemingly  useless,  have  given  us  at  last  the  indis- 
pensable electric  telegraph,  by  means  of  which  we 
can  govern  the  course  of  the  markets  in  Sydney 
and  Calcutta,  in  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  or  the 
farthest  confines  of  Afghanistan.     Who  does  not 


THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE.  257 

laugh  at  the  "  mere  theorists "  who  investigate 
the  causes  and  nature  of  disease?  Yet  the  "mere 
theorists  "  have  ah-eadv  succeeded  in  all  but  re- 
straining  the  ravages  of  small-pox,  and  are  now 
engaged  in  stemming  the  tide  of  cholera,  with 
remarkable  results,  throughout  the  South  of 
Europe. 

One  very  noteworthy  way  in  which  the  pride 
of  ignorance  is  frequently  exhibited  is  the  pre- 
sumptuous readiness  with  which  utterly  unlearned 
people  will  sometimes  demolish  at  a  single  blow 
Newton's  theory  of  gravitation  or  the  Copernican 
system  of  the  solar  family.  Nothing  is  commoner 
than  to  find  a  silly  schoolgirl  or  an  ignorant  boy 
demonstrate  at  once  with  a  few  simple  arguments 
the  flatness  of  the  earth  or  the  untenability  of  the 
Newtonian  hypothesis.  Such  people  have  no  idea 
of  the  long,  slow,  and  laborious  method  by  which 
the  results  they  attack  have  been  originally 
reached  and  gradually  tested.  They  do  not  know 
that  innumerable  experiments  have  been  carefully 
tried,  innumerable  measurements  accurately  made, 
innumerable  precautions  continually  taken  against 
the  slightest  error  or  vitiating  element.  They  do 
not  understand  that  a  great  philosopher,  sitting 
down  to  investigate  a  profound  problem,  works  at 
it  long  from  every  side,  eliminates  every  possible 
source  of  mistake,  starts  every  conceivable  objec- 
tion himself,  and  meets  them  all  by  every  subtle 


258  THE  PRIDE  OF  IGXORANCE. 

and  crucial  experiment  that  his  skill  and  his  inge- 
nuity can  in  any  way  suggest  to  him.  They  are 
not  aware  that  the  moment  his  conclusions  are 
made  public  they  are  subjected  to  a  close  and 
5Jigcr  scrutiny  by  a  hundred  other  scientific  men, 
clfted,  t(?sted,  pulled  about,  dissected,  if  possible 
assailed,  denied,  and  refuted.  Men  of  science  are 
always  trying  one  another's  supposed  discoveries 
or  inventions  with  the  utmost  keenness,  frank- 
ness, and  critical  acuteness.  They  are  not  re- 
strained by  considerations  of  polite  reticence  ;  if 
they  believe  an  experiment  to  be  inconclusive, 
or  an  inference  to  be  false,  they  say  so  not 
only  pLainl}',  but  bluntly  and  pointedly.  They 
sit  as  a  perpetual  court  of  appeal  to  hear  cases 
sent  up  to  them  for  trial  from  the  individual 
discoverers.  Whatever  belief  escapes  their  care- 
ful and  close  examination,  whatever  idea  is 
stamped  by  their  universal  and  cordial  appro- 
bation, may  safely  be  acce[)ted  by  the  rest 
of  the  world  as  fairly  irrefutable.  Men  who 
know  anything  at  all  know,  for  example,  that  the 
earth's  rotundity  has  been  abundantly  proved 
over  and  over  again  by  endless  experiments  and 
observations,  and  still  more  by  the  successful  car- 
rying-out of  innumerable  schemes  or  calculations 
based  upon  its  known  size  and  shape  and  degree 
of  oblateness.  Every  ship  that  makes  its  way 
from  one  port  to  another  by  daily  taking  the  lati- 


THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE.  259 

tucle  and  longitude  verifies  the  belief  tliat  tlie 
earth  is  round,  and  a  hundred  other  beliefs  as 
well,  as  to  its  relation  to  the  sun,  its  orbit,  its 
nutation,  and  so  forth,  through  all  the  long  string 
of  its  recognized  astronomical  and  cosmical  prop- 
erties. But  absolutely  ignorant  people  are  alwaj'S 
to  be  found,  in  spite  of  their  own  crass  inacquaint- 
ance  with  the  very  elements  of  the  abstruse  sub- 
ject, to  deny  the  fact  that  the  earth  is  round,  to 
dispute  the  truths  about  its  condition  as  a  planet, 
and  to  declare  dogmatically  tlieir  unfounded 
belief  that  it  occupies  the  very  centre  of  the 
universe  —  a  belief  wholly  incompatible  with  the 
due  arrival  of  the  tea  they  drink  every  morning 
for  breakfast,  or  the  sugar  with  which  they 
sweeten  their  whiskey  toddy  every  night  at 
bedtime. 

Another  very  noteworthy  form  of  the  pride  of 
ignorniice  is  that  which  assumes  the  guise  of 
huuii  y,  and  declaims  against  the  supposed  intel 
lectual  arrogance  and  blindness  of  otiiers.  This 
particular  variety  of  the  affection  habitually  takes 
a  mock-modest  shape.  You  happen  to  observe  of 
a  particular  geological  specimen,  it  may  be,  that 
it  probably  dates  back  (as  science  has  decided)  to 
a  couple  of  million  years  ago  or  so.  Pride  of 
ignorance  is  immediately  aroused.  How  can  you 
venture  to  make  such  a  terrible  assertion?  It  is 
contrary  to  your  critic's  own  personal  interpreta- 


260  THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE. 

tion  of  the  letter  of  Scripture,  and  he  is  astonished 
that  you  should  have  the  boldness,  the  audacity,  the 
unparalleled  arrogance  to  set  yourself  up  against 
the  precise  words  of  inspiration.  You  venture  to 
reply  with  all  humility  that,  in  the  opinion  of 
many  among  the  most  eminent  Hebrew  scholars 
and  Biblical  students,  the  words  in  question  do 
not  necessarily  bear  the  meaning  he  chooses  to 
assign  to  them,  while  the  positive  evidence  of 
geology  on  the  point  of  antiquity  is  clear,  certain, 
and  incontrovertible.  Pride  of  ignorance  can 
hardly  contain  its  indignation.  Your  interlocutor 
assures  you,  with  an  air  of  immense  superiority, 
tlrat  for  his  part  he  does  not  pretend  to  under- 
stand Greek  and  Hebrew,  and  that  he  thanks 
Heaven  he  knows  nothing  at  all  about  geology ; 
but  he  can  see  the  plain  meaning  of  Scripture  as 
well  as  an}^  man,  and  he  is  astonished  that  you, 
who  set  yourself  up  to  be  some  great  one,  should 
dare  to  differ  from  inspiration  upon  the  subject. 
You  reply  humbly  that  in  these,  as  in  other  mat- 
ters, opinions  vary ;  that  you  differ  not  from  inspi- 
ration, but  from  him;  that,  after  all,  his  interpre- 
tation is  only  his  interpretation ;  that  a  complete 
ignorance  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  is  not  indeed  a 
special  qualification  for  deciding  the  question  at 
issue ;  and  that  some  little  knowedge  of  geology 
may  not,  perhaps,  be  wholly  useless  in  arriving 
at   a   conclusion    upon   tin   essentially   geological 


THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE.  261 

problem.  By  tliis  time  your  critic  probably  loses 
his  temper,  and  begins  to  call  you  hard  names, 
reflecting  upon  the  conduct  of  your  father  and 
grandfather,  and  hinting  in  an  aside  that  your 
second  cousin  was  duly  transported  some  fifty 
years  since  to  Botany  Bay  for  a  bank-robbery. 
To  people  of  this  class,  in  fiict,  their  own  igno- 
rance is  a  simple  source  of  admiration  and  self- 
congratulation.  It  positively  gives  them  in  their 
own  eyes  a  sort  of  mental  and  spiritual  superiority 
over  the  knowledge  of  others.  They  think  they 
are  submitting  their  own  opinions  entirely  to  the 
guidance  of  an  infallible  Mentor,  whereas  they 
are  in  reality  only  setting  up  their  personal  inter- 
pretations and  views  on  religious  questions  as  a 
supreme  law  over  everybody  else's  life  and  con- 
duct. It  is  not  the  letter  of  Scripture  alone  that 
is  inspired  to  them,  but  their  special  reading  and 
interpretation  of  it.  Anything  that  seems  to 
them  to  conflict  with  that  beloved  idol  of  their 
own  explanation  rouses  at  once  their  prejudice  of 
ignorance.  "  Here  is  this  fellow,"  they  say,  "  who 
actually  ventures  to  believe  himself  wiser  than 
my  particular  private  theological  opinion.  How 
arrogant  of  him  —  how  j)resumptuous  !  lie  de- 
serves to  be  scouted  as  a  rank  unbeliever."  We 
get  the  extreme  case  of  this  curious  sort  of  narrow 
dogmatism  in  the  old  story  of  the  illiterate  street- 
preacher  who  commented  in  a  mistaken  way  upon 


262  THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE.  •> 

some  side-meaning  of  an  English  word  in  the 
Authorized  Version  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 
He  was  told  by  a  better-educated  bystander  that 
the  Greek  could  not  possibly  bear  the  meaning  he 
assigned  to  it.  "  Greek  !  "  quoth  the  expounder, 
opening  his  eyes.  "  What  do  I  care  about  the 
Greek  indeed?  D'ye  think  Paul  knew  Greek?" 
In  his  simple  soul  he  imagined  that  the  learned 
scholar  of  Tarsus,  to  whom  the  language  of 
Greece  was  in  all  probability  a  mother-tongue, 
had  delivered  himself  to  the  Church  at  Rome  in 
the  precise  phraseology  of  King  James'  bishoj)s. 

Pride  of  ignorance,  when  it  takes  this  last  offen- 
sive form,  is  in  all  probability  hopelessly  incura- 
ble. The  man  who  can  fortify  his  own  errors  or 
mistakes  by  propping  them  up  on  the  authoritj'- 
of  a  Divine  message  is  rarely  to  be  dislodged  from 
the  strange  position  he  arrogates  to  himself  in  his 
ignorant  complacency.  And  yet  it  is  curious  that 
at  some  time  or  other  hardly  a  single  great  ac- 
cepted truth  has  not  so  been  opposed  by  dogmatic 
ignorance,  hardly  a  single  superstitious  belief  has 
not  so  been  bolstered  up  by  Scriptural  warrant, 
hardly  a  single  gross  injustice  has  not  so  been 
justified  by  the  misapplied  text  of  some  prophet 
or  apostle.  The  earth's  revolution  on  its  own 
axes  was  denied,  for  example,  against  Galileo  and 
Copernicus,  by  the  whole  weight  of  the  Church 
of  Rome.     The  law  of  gravitation  was  objected  to 


THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE.  203 

on  the  ground  that  it  seemed  to  substitute  a  sec- 
ondary cause  for  tlie  immediate  act  and  will  of 
tlie  Creator.  Later  still,  first  geology  and  then 
evolution  have  been  similarly  decried  as  opposed 
to  the  plain  doctrines  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The 
good  and  learned  Sir  Matthew  Hale  firmly  held 
that,  if  you  did  not  burn  unhappy  old  women  at 
the  stake  as  witches  —  for  no  other  crime  than 
because  they  were  bent  double  and  very  ugly  — 
you  were  disregarding  the  plain  injunctions  of  the 
divinely  inspired  author.  In  our  own  day  we 
have  been  similarly  told  that  to  doubt  the  reality 
of  the  shadowy  white  ghost  which  appeared  one 
dark  Saturday  night  to  William  Snooks  in  the 
haunted  house  at  Jjittle  Pedlington  is  to  under- 
mine the  very  foundations  of  Christianity.  Thou- 
sands of  excellent  peo[)le  were  certain  a  genera- 
tion ago  that  to  grant  civil  rights  to  the  Jews  was 
to  cast  a  terrible  slight  upon  the  national  religion. 
A  few  centuries  earlier,  in  the  reign  of  King  John, 
it  was  no  doubt  regarded  as  a  pious  work  to  ex- 
tract the  teeth  of  Hebrews  by  slow  degrees  ;  and 
a  man  who  should  have  objected  to  the  popular 
method  of  converting  them  in  the  mass  by  burn- 
ing down  their  houses  and  ill-treating  their  wives 
and  daughters  would  i)robably  have  brought  down 
upon  himself  universal  condemnation  as  a  very 
lukewarm,  half-hearted  Christian.  These  curious 
abeirations   of    the    human   intellect    and    these 


264  THE  PRIDE  OF  IGNORANCE. 

strange  freaks  of  personal  interpretation  ought  to 
make  us  all  very  careful  how  we  prop  up  our  own 
ignorant  opinions  or  prejudices  by  the  weight  of 
an  infallible  Divine  authority  as  expounded  by 
our  own  very  fallible  fancy. 


XXIV. 

INHABITED  WORLDS. 

Ever  since  astronomy  first  definitely  settled 
the  question  that  our  own  planet  was  but  one 
among  many,  a  single  small  and  unimportant 
member  of  a  large  family,  all  revolving  alike 
around  a  third-rate  sun,  in  a  minor  corner  of  this 
illimitable  universe,  the  human  mind  has  naturally 
exercised  itself  more  or  less  foolishly  and  persis- 
tently over  the  abstruse  question  whether  any  of 
the  other  stars  or  planets  were  inhabited  like  our 
own  by  rational  beings.  It  seems  to  us,  poor  little 
mundane  mortals,  in  our  feeble  fashion,  that  a 
world  or  a  star  not  peopled  with  creatures  formed 
essentially  after  our  own  pattern  must  be  in  so  far 
waste  and  useless.  The  sole  object  of  a  planet  or 
other  orb,  we  imagine,  must  be  either  to  contain 
and  support  human  beings,  like  our  own  earth, 
or  else  at  least  to  warm  them,  light  them,  and 
supply  them  daily  with  fresh  stores  of  radiant 
energy,  as  is  the  case  with  the  sun,  the  centre  and 
ruler  of  our  petty  system.  This  narrow  mode  of 
envisaging  the  universe  to  ourselves  is  almost 
inevitable  from  the  very  constitution  and  circuui- 

265 


266  INHABITED   WORLDS. 

stances  of  human  nature.  Our  race  first  found 
itself  born  and  bred  upon  an  apparently  flat  and 
limitless  world,  with  sun,  moon,  and  stars  dancing 
attendance  over  it  to  illumine  it,  or  lieat  it,  and 
occui)ying,  so  far  as  natural  vision  could  tell  us, 
the  very  centre  of  the  entire  universe.  And, 
when  slowly  we  began  as  a  race  to  discover  that 
the  world  was  s[)herical  instead  of  flat,  that  it 
went  round  the  sun,  instead  of  having  the  sun  to 
run  round  it  daily,  that  it  was  one  of  the  least 
among  the  members  of  the  solar  system,  instead 
of  the  greatest  of  all  things,  and  that  the  solar 
system  itself  was  but  a  tiny  speck  in  a  vastly 
wider  galaxy  of  suns  and  star-clouds  —  when  we 
began  to  discover  all  these  disconcerting  and  un- 
pleasant facts,  bringing  home  to  us  forcibly  our 
own  smallness,  feebleness,  and  slight  importance, 
it  was  no  wonder  that  we  should  take  refuge  in 
speculations  as  to  the  possibility  of  human  life  ex- 
tending into  other  planets  and  other  systems.  We 
salved  our  disgust  at  our  own  humiliation  by  pro- 
jecting ourselves,  as  it  were,  into  the  rest  of  the 
universe. 

Gradually,  as  the  now  accepted  nebular  theory 
of  the  origin  of  our  sun  and  planets  gained 
ground,  astronomers  recognized  more  and  more 
fully  the  improbability  of  life  extending  to  other 
orbs.  According  to  that  theory,  the  material 
which  at  present  composes  the  sun,  the  earth,  the 


INHABITED   WORLDS.  267 

moon,  and  the  planeis  once  existed  as  a  sort  of 
cloud  or  luize,  spread  over  an  enormously  wide 
area  —  as  far,  in  fact,  as  the  orbit  of  Neptune,  the 
most  distant  of  the  known  bodies  belone^injjf  to 
our  system.  Slowly  the  gravitative  force  of  the 
entire  mass  drew  it  together  toward  its  common 
centre,  at  the  spot  now  occupied  by  our  great 
luminary,  the  sun.  As  the  cloud  condensed  and 
gathered  in  its  hem,  it  cast  off  rings,  one  after 
another,  wliich  formed  the  materials  in  the  fulness 
of  time  for  the  various  planets.  Each  such  planet 
began  its  existence  as  a  little  sun,  a  minor  mass  of 
red-hot  matter,  which  gradually  cooled  by  radia- 
tion on  its  outer  surface,  though  still  remaining  at 
a  very  high  temperature  in  its  inner  core.  Obser- 
vation, in  fact,  leads  us  to  believe  that  Jupiter  and 
Saturn,  the  two  great  giant  planets,  immensely 
bigger  than  our  own  earth,  are  still  in  a  state  of 
fiery  commotion,  subject  to  terrilic  throes  and 
cyclones,  and  enjoying  even  now  their  hot  and 
boisterous  planetary  youth.  Indeed,  since  large 
masses  would  take  much  longer  to  cool  down  than 
small  ones,  this  is  just  what  we  should  reasonably 
expect  to  be  the  case ;  the  big  [)lanets  ought  natu- 
rally to  retain  their  heat  longest,  while  the  snialler 
ones  ought  of  course  to  present  every  appearance 
of  a  chilly  exterior  in  exact  proportion  to  their 
minuteness  of  size.  The  moon,  our  own  insignifi- 
cant satellite,  shows  us  in  fact  the  very  opposite 


268  INHABITED    WORLDS. 

extreme  in  this  respect  to  Jujtiter  and  Saturn  ;  it 
is  evidently  a  cold  and  burnt-out  little  world, 
devoid  of  all  its  original  fiery  energy.  It  has  no 
water  anywhere  upon  its  surface ;  no  atmosphere 
clothes  it  with  a  gaseous  covering ;  it  exhibits  one 
terrible  and  deathlike  scene  of  bare  rocky  volca- 
noes and  yawning  craters,  undiversified  by  the 
foliage  of  trees  or  the  green  carpet  of  grasses,  and 
barren  of  any  passing  sign  of  animal  and  vege- 
table life  in  any  part  of  its  desert  ex})anses. 

Now,  it  is  quite  clear  that,  in  either  of  these 
two  extremes  of  planetary  existence  —  in  the  fiery 
youtli  of  a  world,  or  in  its  cold  old  age  —  the  oc- 
currence of  life  upon  its  surface,  at  least  in  any 
form  that  we  can  at  all  realize,  is  absolutely  incon- 
ceivable. While  a  young  earth  is  still  in  a  molten 
or  semi-molten  condition,  like  glass  in  a  furnace, 
plants  or  animals  as  we  know  them  here  could 
not  possibly  exist  upon  its  incandescent  lava- 
fields.  On  the  other  hand,  when  it  has  grown 
old,  chilly,  waterless,  and  airless,  when  all  its 
oceans  have  been  sucked  up  by  its  rocks,  and  all 
its  atmosphere  slowly  absorbed  into  its  crust  by 
chemical  action,  the  existence  of  any  living  thing 
upon  its  bare  and  wrinkled  face  becomes  of  course 
utterly  impossible.  Hence,  even  if  we  suppose 
that  every  i)lanet  is  at  some  lime  or  other  neces- 
sarily and  naturally  fitted  for  supporting  life,  it 
can  do  so  only  during  its  middle  period,  such  a 


INHABITED    WORLDS.  269 

middle  period  as  that  to  whicli  the  wliole  geologi- 
cal history  of  our  own  earth  bears  witness,  from 
the  dawn  of  life  to  the  present  day.  It  would  be 
rash  to  assert  that  during  such  an  intermediate 
age  every  planet  does  actually  prove  the  theatre 
of  life  of  some  sort ;  all  that  we  are  entitled 
legitimately  to  assert  is  merely  this,  that  under 
such  and  such  conditions,  and  under  no  others, 
life  becomes  at  any  rate  possible. 

This  consideration  shows  us  at  once  how  foolish 
are  the  ordinary  hasty  speculations  of  thoughtless 
reasoners  as  to  the  possibility  or  probability  of 
"other  worlds  than  ours"  being  really  inhabited. 
When  such  people  say  "  inhabited,"  they  mean  in 
effect,  though  they  do  not  say  so,  inhabited  by 
human  beings. like  ourselves,  or  at  least  by  other 
and  similar  rational  creatures.  But  the  real  point 
to  be  settled  first  is  a  far  more  fundamental  one  ; 
it  is  the  prior  question  whether  life  in  au)^  form, 
animal  or  vegetable,  or  anything  resembling  it,  is 
there  possible.  For  man  presupposes  beef  and 
mutton,  wheat  and  potatoes,  or  something  at  any 
rate  very  like  them.  How  narrow  and  illogical 
it  is  to  concentrate  our  attention  solely  on  the 
probability  or  improbability  of  there  being  men 
and  women  in  Mercury  or  Venus,  while  we  never 
think  of  inquiring  whether  there  are  lions  or 
tigers  there,  oak-trees  or  chestnuts  !  And  that, 
again,  leads  up  naturuHy  to  tlie  further  conclusion 


270  INHABITED   WORLDS. 

tliiit  ill  no  case  is  it  probable  any  particnlar  plant 
or  animal  would  reappear  identically  in  any  two 
distinct  planets.  For  consider  how  immensely, 
even  in  our  own  world,  the  plants  and  animals 
differ  in  different  countries.  In  Europe  we  have 
all  elms  and  ashes,  dogs  and  horses,  weasels  and 
foxes,  sparrows  and  jackdaws.  In  Asia,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  liave  palms  and  baobabs,  ele- 
phants and  camels,  jackais  and  rhinoceroses,  par- 
rots and  sunbirds.  Still  more  strikingly  different 
are  the  products  of  the  sea  from  those  of  the  land 
—  the  wrack  and  the  sea-weed,  the  fish  and  the  lob- 
sters, the  whales  and  the  seals  —  from  the  plants 
and  animals  of  the  dry  earth.  And,  if  within  the 
Hunts  of  our  own  })lanet  we  iind  such  an  extraor- 
dinary diversity  and  wealth  of  variety,  how  can 
we  expect  with  any  show  of  reason  that  in  the 
widely  unlike  circumstances  of  a  totally  different 
world  any  single  form  such  as  we  here  know  it 
would  be  separately  produced  in  exact  fac-simile  ? 
"Surely,"  it  may  be  objected,  "even  if  there  be 
no  men  in  the  other  planets  during  their  period  of 
life,  if  such  they  have,  there  must  at  least  be 
rational  creatures  !  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed 
that  whole  worlds  would  be  wasted,  aa  it  were, 
upon  lower  forms  of  life  alone,  and  that  planets 
immensely  vaster  than  our  own  would  be  thrown 
away  upon  mere  unreasoning  creatures."  Perhaps 
not —  we  cannot  say  ;  thus  much  alone  we  know 


INHABITED    WORLDS.  271 

for  certain.  Our  own  earth  existed  for  countless 
millions  of  ages  before  man  at  last  appeared  upon 
its  surface.  Period  after  period  rolled  slowly  on, 
from  the  remote  past  of  the  lifeless  epoch,  tlirough 
the  days  w'ien  first  tlie  fishes,  then  the  re[)liles, 
then  the  birds,  and  then  the  quadru^jeds  api)eared 
upon  the  scene,  before  a  human  form  or  a  human 
mind  ever  graced  the  wilds  of  our  planet.  Yet 
nobody  looks  u[)on  those  long  eras  of  geological 
time  as  in  any  sense  wasted,  merely  because  man 
was  not  yet  evolved  or  created.  Wby^  then, 
should  we  think  it  absurd  that  other  worlds  might 
go  forever  without  rational  inhabitants?  Not,  of 
course,  that  we  would  dogmatically  deny  the  exis- 
tence of  such  inhal)itants  at  some  time  or  other  in 
the  various  planets.  On  tlie  contniry,  it  seems  to 
us  more  reasonable  to  be1ie\e  by  analogy  that  life 
of  some  sort  or  another  will  always  be  develojicil 
on  the  surface  of  every  world  where  the  condi- 
tions are  fitted  for  it,  and  that  the  larger  the 
world  and  the  long(!r  the  duration  of  its  life-bear- 
ing stage,  the  higher  will  be  the  types  of  life  pro- 
duced upon  it.  If  we  were  to  trust  to  analogical 
reasoning  at  all  in  so  uncertain  a  matter,  we 
should  say  it  is  most  i)robable  that  rational  crea- 
tures will  ultimately  inhabit  Jupiter  and  Saturn, 
of  far  greater  perfection  and  nobility  and  virtue 
than  any  of  ourselves  in  this  tiny  spheroid.  But 
to  say  that  they  would  resemble  man  in  any  way 


4 

272  INHABITED    WORLDS. 

would  be  very  unreasonable,  considering  how  im- 
mense is  the  diversity  of  appearance,  habit,  func- 
tion, and  nature  among  the  animals  alone  of  our 
own  planet. 

Yet  even  to  assert  that  the  other  planets  would 
be  wasted  in  the  scheme  of  the  universe  because 
they  do  not  or  may  not  contain  life  is  in  itself  a 
gross  piece  of  purely  human  and  mundane  arro- 
gance. It  is  as  thougli  an  ant,  emerging  from  its 
nest  and  surveying  the  ocean,  were  to  declare  that 
all  the  vast  expanse  of  waters  was  wasted  because 
it  did  not  afford  room  for  innumerable  ant-hills. 
What,  after  all,  is  life  or  humanity  that  we  should 
erect  it  into  a  measure  and  standard  for  the  great 
wide  universe?  We  do  not  consider  the  earth's 
interior  wasted  because  no  life  is  possible  there. 
We  are  not  even  greatly  affected  by  the  sands  of 
Sahara  and  the  Himalayan  snow-fields,  the  north 
pole  or  the  antarctic  continent.  We  do  not  com- 
plain that  the  sun  is  too  hot  to  hold  living  crea- 
tures, and  that  tlie  fixed  stars  are  in  a  continual 
state  of  fiery  agitation.  It  is  only  the  barrenness 
of  planetary  surfaces  that  thus  affects  us,  because 
we  think  that  there  at  least  some  form  of  life  is 
fairly  conceivable.  But  why  should  we  demand 
tliat  the  univei'se  should  be  laid  out  for  life  at 
all  ?  Wh}'  believe  that  life  is  necessary  anywhere 
in  any  way  outside  the  limits  of  our  own  little 
planet?     It  may  well  be  that  plants  and  animals 


i 


INHABITED    WORLDS.  273 

are  wholly  peculiar  to  this  petty  world  of  ours. 
It  may  well  be  that  the  special  conjunction  of 
minute  circumstances  which  renders  the  existence 
of  life  possible  may  never  have  occurred,  and  may 
never  again  occur,  upon  any  one  of  the  countless 
orbs  that  speck  the  vast  expanse  of  the  heavens. 
Or,  again,  it  may  well  be  that  life  is  an  almost 
inevitable  incident  in  the  existence  of  a  planet ; 
that  every  cooling  and  condensing  world,  supplied 
with  light  and  heat  from  some  neighboring  sun, 
becomes  naturally  the  scene  of  living  energies  on 
the  part  of  creatures  resembling  plants  and  ani- 
mals as  we  know  them.  But,  in  either  case,  there 
is  surely  no  necessity  to  look  upon  life,  human  or 
other,  as  the  end  and  aim  of  the  entire  universe. 
To  do  so  is  to  fall  into  a  narrow  and  restricted 
human  fallacy.  We  know  that  all  the  innumera- 
ble fixed  stars  which  stud  the  evening  sky  are  not 
and  cannot  be  the  abode  of  living  creatures.  We 
know  that  our  own  sun,  a  molten  mass  so  infi- 
nitely bigger  than  this  petty  earth,  is  not  and  can- 
not be  a  dwelling-place  for  plant  or  animal.  We 
know  that,  from  one  cause  or  another,  our  satel- 
lite, the  moon,  and  most  of  our  sister  planets  are 
quite  incapable  of  supporting  life  upon  their  fiery 
or  frozen  surfaces.  We  know  that  for  ages  and 
ages  our  own  earth  was  equally  unable  to  meet 
the  conditions  of  animal  existence,  and  that,  even 
after  she  had  attaiued  to  the  evolution  of  life, 


4 

274  INHABITED    WORLDS. 

myriads  of  years  were  still  destined  to  pass  before 
the  first  appearance  of  man  upon  her  great  conti- 
nents. AVe  know,  in  short,  that  the  vastest  ex- 
panses of  space  and  time  are  ordered  by  Supreme 
Wisdom  without  any  apparent  reference  to  the 
existence  of  sentient  or  rational  creatures.  Enor- 
mous orbs  revolve  for  immense  periods  througli 
inconceivable  abysses  of  empty  aether,  devoid  of 
life  or  feeling  in  any  form  upon  their  wide  sur- 
faces. Evidently,  tliough  life  is  everything  to  us, 
mere  specks  upon  the  outer  crust  of  a  minor 
planet  of  a  petty  sun,  it  is  not  everything  in  the 
vast  Divine  scheme  of  the  material  universe.  We 
suppose  it  to  be  so  only  because  of  our  narrow 
human  iutelligence,  forgetting  that  the  heavens 
may  declare  the  glory  of  God  just  as  much  in 
barrenness  and  vastness  as  in  jjopulousness  with 
tiny  creatures  like  ourselves  —  that  tlie  universe 
as  a  whole  is  not  necessarily  constructed  in  ac- 
cordance with  our  finite  human  conceptions  of  fit- 
ness and  usefulness.  To  us  nothing  is  good  which 
does  not  subserve  human  happiness  and  human 
comfort.  But  is  it  needs  so  with  the  entire 
cosmos  ?  Are  we  tiny  ants  in  our  human  ant-hills 
to  be  regarded  as  the  sole  measures,  moral  and 
physical,  of  the  great  and  marvellous  galaxy 
around  us?  The  idea  is  simply  ridiculous.  Our 
doubt  whether  life  does  or  does  not  exist  upon 
other  worlds  affects  iii  no  way  the  grandeur  and 


INHABITED    WORLDS.  275 

beauty  and  glory  and  perfection  of  the  existing- 
universe.  The  sea  is  none  the  less  great  and  sub- 
lime  because  we  cannot  till  it  and  build  brick  cot- 
tages  upon  it.  Let  us  recollect  that  even  this 
earth  is  mostly  water,  and  restrain  our  foolish 
Jiuman  desire  to  find  a  sort  of  human  fitness  and 
utihtarian  proi)riety  in  every  detail  of  the  vast 
creation. 


xxv. 

BRICJK  AND  STONE. 

It  is  a  curious  reflection  that  the  rise  and  pro- 
gress of  the  arts  in  general,  and  of  arcliitecture  in 
j)articukir,  in  every  country,  have  been  hirgely 
dependent  upon  the  nature  and  j)eculiarities  of  the 
various  materials  which  each  nation  found  ready 
to  its  hand  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  its 
own  great  towns  and  cities.  Tiius,  for  example, 
Egyptian  architecture  \vas  immensely  influenced 
by  the  granite  of  Syene,  the  solid  grain  of  w^iich 
naturally  contributed  the  massive  columns  that 
we  all  associate  with  the  colossal  temples  of 
Thebes  and  Karnak.  So,  too,  Egyptian  sculpture, 
for  the  same  reason,  being  mostly  hewn  from  that 
very  rigid  and  intractable  material,  displays  every- 
where a  stiffness  and  a  want  of  plasticity  nowhere 
else  to  be  found  in  the  entire  statuary  of  any  other 
civilized  people.  Clearly,  it  would  have  been 
impossible  to  carve  from  solid  syenite  the  out- 
stretched arm  of  the  Apollo  Belvedere  or  the 
graceful  limbs  of  the  Medici  Venus.  Hence  most 
Egyptian  sculpture  is  constantly  marked  by  sym- 
metrical regularity  of  the  two  halves  of  the  body; 

276 


BRICK  AND  STONE.  277 

the  arms  lie  flat  and  outstretched  agahist  the  shU's, 
and  the  legs  are  pressed  close  together  in  the 
stiffest  possible  and  most  formal  manner.  The 
rapid  development  of  Greek  art,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  its  singular  outburst  of  grace  and  free- 
dom, must  be  largely  connected  with  the  pure 
white  Parian  marble  quarries  of  the  Greek  archi- 
pelago, from  which  are  carved  both  the  columns 
of  the  Parthenon  and  the  exquisite  forms  of  Hel- 
lenic statuary.  Assyrian  scul[)ture  and  architec- 
ture, founded  mainly  on  ahibuster  and  plastic  clay, 
stand  midway,  accordingly,  between  these  two  ex- 
tremes, leading  on  from  the  heavy  and  ungainly 
Egyptian  stiff)iess  to  the  free  and  natural  Athenian 
grace.  So  we  find  in  every  country  that  the 
material  upon  which  the  native  artist  or  artisiui  is 
necessarily  compelled  to  work  in  early  ages  has 
done  much  to  give  color  and  tone  to  the  whole 
future  course  of  national  development  in  many 
directions. 

Take,  for  another  excellent  example  of  the  same 
truth,  the  common  industrial  art  of  China  and 
Japan,  as  compared  Avith  that  of  Greece  and  Italy 
Look  at  the  mere  influence  on  Chinese  art  of  the 
habit  of  tea-drinking!  It  has  given  the  entire 
fictile  handicraft  of  the  country  a  twist  towards 
the  production  of  tea-pots  and  tea-cups;  and  it 
has  caused  the  whole  process  of  tea-growing  and 
tea-drying  to  be  represented  over  and  over  again 


278  BRICK  AND  STONE. 

ill  a  thoii'^aiKl  difTerent  blue-and-vvhite  designs, 
fjuniliHr  .  all  of  us  on  plates  and  vases.  In 
(rreece  it  was  the  grape  that  held  the  same  place. 
Wine  was  there  the  drink  of  the  country,  the 
sacred  drink  of  the  gods ;  it  is  the  child  Bacchus 
playing  with  a  bunch  of  the  purple  fruit  that  we 
get,  instead  of  the  fat  complacent  mandarin  calmly 
sipping  his  fragrant  bohea  at  the  little  wicker 
table  in  the  back  garden.  The  vine-leaf  and  the 
thyrsus,  the,  vase  and  the  beaker,  the  great  two- 
handled  wine-jar  and  the  earthen  amphora  —  these 
are  to  Greek  and  Roman  habits  what  the  tea-plant 
and  the  tea-caddy,  the  delicate  porcelain  cup  and 
the  dainty  tea-pot,  are  to  Chinese  and  Japanese 
culture.  And  here  again  the  possession  of  kaolin, 
or  China  clay,  from  which  the  porcelain  itself  can 
be  manufactured,  strikes  the  key-note  of  the 
Chinese  fictile  art,  just  as  the  common  red  earthen- 
ware of  Greece  and  Italy  lends  itself  naturally  to 
the  red  and  black  Athenian  and  Etruscan  decora- 
tion, so  familiar  to  all  of  us  on  ancient  vases  or 
modern  Wedgwood  imitations.  Look,  once  more, 
at  the  influence  of  paper  on  Japanese  art.  How 
much  the  lanterns  and  the  parasols,  the  fans  and 
the  pictures,  the  lianging  scrolls  and  the  thousand 
and  one  little  decorative  knick-knacks  that  now 
adorn  half  the  shops  and  houses  in  London  and 
New  York  owe  to  that  cheaj)  and  common  mate- 
rial in  the  hands  of  the  skilful  Japanese  workman  ! 


BRICK  AND  STONE.  279 

Without  paper  and  its  haiulmaid  the  bamboo-cane, 
where  would  be  the  innumerable  pretty  little  col- 
ored nothings  that  at  small  cost  now  make  bright 
innumerable  homes  with  the  quaint  exotic  decora- 
tion of  the  Far  East? 

But  if  the  material  which  comes  naturally  to 
the  hands  of  the  artisan  has  often  had  so  great  an 
influence  for  good  on  the  development  of  handi- 
craft, it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  frequently 
answerable  for  much  that  is  painfully  ugly  and  in 
every  way  to  be  deplored.  London  itself,  above 
all  other  English  towns,  affords  us  a  most  unfor- 
tunate example  of  the  bad  results  that  necessarily 
flow  from  a  great  city  being  confined  to  a  cheap 
and  bad  form  of  raw  material.  English  architec- 
ture has  suffered  terribly  from  the  fact  that  Lon- 
don stands  in  the  very  centre  of  a  great  stoneless 
valley,  surrounded  by  numerous  patches  of  inferior 
brick-earth.  There  is  no  good  sound  building- 
stone  to  be  had  anywhere  within  Ctisy  reach  of 
London  or  the  lower  Thames.  The  great  city  is 
built  for  the  most  part  on  stiff  London  clay  or  on 
loose  glacial  gravel,  with  here  and  there  a  single 
suburb  stretching  away  upward  on  to  the  soft  and 
friable  Bagshot  sands.  The  consequence  is  that 
from  the  very  first  the  only  building-material  that 
could  possibly  be  used  for  the  common  class  of 
London  dwelling-houses  was  the  very  unsatisfac- 
tory local  brick-earth.     True,  in  the  Middle  Ages 


280  BRICK  AND  STONE. 

Caen  stone  was  imported  from  Normantly  for  the 
production  of  the  handsomer  and  more  important 
ecclesiastical  edifices,  and  in  hiter  days  the  Hath 
stone  and  the  Portland  stone  have  been  freely 
employed  by  architects  for  private  mansions,  or 
for  the  great  clubs  whose  handsome  row  of  palaces 
now  lines  the  long  and  imposing  front  of  Pall 
Mall.  London  Bridge  is  constructed  of  Dartmoor 
granite  from  the  slopes  of  I  ley  Tor ;  and  several 
important  city  buildings  have  been  erected  from 
the  famous  cold  blue  stone  of  the  Aberdeen  quar- 
ries. But  such  expensive  and  far-fetched  materials 
could  never  of  course  be  commonly  employed  in 
ordinary  domestic  street-architecture ;  and  even 
at  tlie  West  End  London  houses  have  usually  been 
constructed  of  brick  only,  and  that  often  of  infe- 
rior quality.  The  use  of  this  sadly  inadequate 
material  in  the  appropriate  hands  of  the  jerry- 
builder  has  largely  contributed  to  depress  and 
stunt  the  development  of  English  architecture, 
and  especially  to  give  it  a  wrong  direction. 

That  wrong  direction  may  be  particularly  noticed 
in  the  unfortunate  invention  of  stucco,  which  is, 
in  fact,  a  sham  device  for  making  a  brick  building 
pretend  externally  to  be  a  stone  one,  or  at  least 
look  as  much  like  stone  as  it  possibly  can.  For 
some  generations  the  one  desire  of  the  British 
builder  seems  to  Ijave  been  to  disregard  the  natural 
capabilities  of  brick,  the  material  to  which  he  was 


BRICK  AND  STONE.  281 

necessarily  restricted,  and,  instead  of  working  ont 
a  pretty  and  consistent  brick  style,  to  imitate  tlie 
characteristic  effects  of  stone  as  well  as  he  could 
by  copious  layers  and  entablatures  of  stucco. 
Fortunately  of  late  yeai*s  a  great  chango  has  come 
over  the  spirit  of  English  domestic  architecture 
in  this  respect,  and  nowadays  a  new  and  pretty 
mode  of  street  house-building,  wliicli  it  is  fashion- 
able to  call  by  the  somewhat  absurd  title  of  the 
"Queen  Anne  style,"  has  been  introduced  —  a 
mode  basing  itself  entirely  upon  our  good  native 
red  brick,  and  iiibisting  upon  employing  this 
sound,  solid,  and  sensible  material  in  an  o[)en, 
honest,  and  straightforward  fashion.  It  makes  no 
pretence  of  imitating  stone,  but  tries  to  produce 
in  red  brick  the  best  effect  of  which  red  brick  is 
capable.  Even  here,  however,  there  is  some  danger 
of  a  curious  freak  of  fashion  spoiling  the  result  of 
a  really  good  and  solid  improvement ;  for,  in  many 
districts  where  excellent  building-stone  can  be 
readily  obtained,  people  will  now  build  red-brick 
Queen  Anne  houses  "  because  they  are  so  fashion- 
able " ;  while  we  have  even  seen  in  certain  towns 
a  large  house  with  all  its  back  and  side  walls 
solidly  constructed  with  local  limestone,  but  its 
street-front  faced  with  modish  ruddy  brick, 
in  order  to  keep  itself  entirely  in  the  running 
with  London  houses.  This  is  a  very  foolish 
artistic  mistake.     No  good  architect  and  no  sensi- 


282  BRICK  AND  STONE. 

ble  practicul  man  would  ever  employ  brick  for  tlie 
ornamental  parts  of  a  building  in  a  country  where 
stone  was  cheap  and  abundant.  It  is  only  because 
London  lies  in  the  very  midst  of  a  stoneless,  rock- 
less,  brick-yielding  valley  that  London  architects 
have  been  compelled  to  develop  a  school  of  archi- 
tecture which  takes  brick  for  the  very  basis  and 
fundamental  groundwork  of  its  entire  evolution. 

If  we  look  away  to  other  places,  in  America  or 
abroad,  we  shall  see  at  once  how  vastly  superior 
is  the  general  effect  of  street-architecture  in  those 
towns  which  possess  at  their  own  doors  a  good, 
solid,  and  durable  buildii)g-material.  Fifth  Ave- 
nue, in  New  York,  and  IJeacon  Street,  in  Boston, 
owe  much  to  the  beautiful  brown  freestone  of  New 
Haven.  Bath,  again,  comparatively  small  though 
it  be,  is  a  far  handsomer  and  nobler-looking  town 
than  Brighton,  because  Bath  is  built  of  its  own 
splendid  and  imposing  local  stone,  which  gives  to 
the  Circus  and  the  Crescent,  to  Milsom  Street  and 
Laura  Place,  an  air  of  dignity  and  architectural 
plan  wanting  in  almost  every  other  English  city  ; 
whereas  Brighton,  standing  on  the  flanks  of  a  bare 
chalk  down,  has  had  to  trnst  for  its  long  and  gay 
sea-front  to  brick  and  stucco,  while  its  old  and 
quaint  little  parish  church  is  constructed  of  no 
better  or  handsomer  material  than  the  split  Hints 
collected  from  the  lime-pits  on  the  downs  behind 
it.     What  a  contrast  to  the  noble  and  beautiful 


BRICK  AND  STONE.  283 

outlines  of  Batli  Abbey  I  So,  once  more,  Edin- 
burgli,  situated  in  the  midst  of  a  magmficent 
stone-district  and  surrounded  by  numberless  ex- 
cellent quarries,  is  one  of  tiie  handsomest  and 
best-built  towns  in  all  Europe,  the  front  of  Princes 
Street,  in  particular,  being  a  sight  tliat  no  one  who 
has  once  beheld  it  can  ever  forget  throughout  a 
whole  lifetime.  The  lack  of  solid  building-mate- 
rials among  the  soft  crumbling  red  sandstones  of 
Cheshire  led  to  the  survival  in  Chester  of  the 
quaint  old-fashioned  English  pargeted  houses,  with 
their  prettily  intermixed  fronts  of  plaster  and 
woodwork ;  while  many  mansions,  and  not  a  few 
churches,  constructed  in  the  same  curious  and 
effective  style  of  domestic  architecture,  are  scat- 
tered up  and  down  over  the  face  of  the  county. 
In  Aberd(3en,  on  the  other  hand,  the  local  granite 
lends  its  cold  gray  grandeur  to  the  solemn  and 
imposing  sweep  of  Union  Street,  a  worthy  thor- 
oughfare for  the  great  bleak  northern  city  on  the 
German  Ocean,  with  its  antique  colleges  and  its 
gay  shop-fronts,  its  fisher-village,  and  its  bustling 
busy  modern  quays.  Everywhere  we  can  see  that 
the  local  conditions  have  largely  modified  the  local 
architecture,  and  that  where  a  good  and  plentiful 
native  building-material  existed  from  the  begin- 
ning ready  to  the  workman's  hand,  a  commensurate 
effect  lias  been  easily  produced  with  but  little 
expenditure  of  conscious  effort. 


284  liRWK  AND  STONE. 

Paris  forms  aiiotlier  excellent  example  of  the 
influence  of  material  upon  street-architecture.  It 
stands  upon  endless  quarries  of  a  soft  and  very 
workable  freestone  which  lends  itself  readily  to  the 
chisel  of  the  architectural  sculptor  and  permits  of 
infinite  indulgence  in  scrolls,  figures,  and  ornamen- 
tal handicraft  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  florid 
and  gaudy  Parisian  taste.  The  old  Paris  made 
comparatively  little  use  of  this  its  natural  mineral 
wealth ;  but  the  new  city  which  grew  up  under 
the  fostering  hands  of  Baron  Hausmann  has  util- 
ized its  splendid  stone-quarries  to  the  utmost,  if 
not  with  any  great  picturesque  effect,  at  least 
with  much  stateliness,  uniformity,  and  dignity  of 
plan,  only  here  and  there  degenerating  character- 
istically into  vulgar  meretricious  ornament.  The 
great  boulevards  which  stretch  out  radially  from 
the  centres  formed  every  now  and  again  by  round 
points  .adorned  with  fountains  run  very  straight 
ad  infinitum^  and  arc  composed  of  exceedingly  tall 
and  rather  monotonous  white  stone-fronted  shops 
and  mansions;  but,  as  a  whole,  they  possess  a 
certain  grand  imperial  dignity  of  their  own,  and, 
when  lighted  up  at  night  with  the  electric  light, 
are  worthy  highways  for  the  gay  metropolis  of  a 
great  civilized  and  enlightened  people.  No  sight 
on  earth  is  more  impressive  in  its  w.ay  than  a 
glance  from  one  of  these  central  diverging  points 
down  avenue  after  avenue  of  stately,  noble,  and 


BRICK  AND  STONE.  285 

imposing  buildings.  That  is  the  result  of  Imperial 
despotism  and  an  organized  plan,  ruthlessly  carried 
out  at  the  expense  of  all  possible  discomfort  and 
inconvenience  to  individual  persons.  In  New 
York,  with  its  tall,  irregular,  uneven  shops  and 
its  magnificent  brown-stone  private  houses,  one 
sees,  on  the  contrary,  the  opposite  result  of  Repub- 
lican freedom  and  individuality.  The  brown 
stone  of  which  most  of  the  houses  in  Fifth  Avenue 
are  built  forms  one  of  the  richest  and  handsomest 
building-materials  to  be  found  anywhere  among 
the  cities  of  Christendom.  Each  house  stands  a 
little  apart  from  its  neighbors ;  each  has  its  own 
personality  and  characteristics ;  and  the  abundant 
growth  of  Virginian  creeper  which  drapes  most  of 
the  rich  ruddy  fronts  under  the  blue  and  cloudless 
sky  of  America  gives  an  air  of  rusticity  and  ele- 
gance to  the  whole  which  could  hardly  be  imitated 
in  any  crowded  European  capital.  It  will  be  long 
before  London  has  any  street  of  such  perfectly 
natural  well  adapted  houses ;  but  the  pretty  rows 
which  are  now  filling  up  Hampstead  and  many 
other  favorite  suburbs  may  encourage  one  to  hope 
that  in  the  course  of  time  even  the  gloomy  Eng- 
lish streets  may  acquire  a  little  more  brightness, 
variety,  and  interest  than  has  ever  hitherto  char- 
acterized the  productions  of  British  architecture. 


XXVI. 

EVENING  FLOWERS. 

It  is  one  of  the  strong  points  of  the  new  school 
of  naturalists  which  has  grown  up  around  us  dur- 
ing the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  that  they  are  no 
longer  content,  like  tlieir  predecessors,  with  merely 
stating  how  such  and  such  an  animal  or  plant  is 
fashioned  here  or  there  in  such  and  such  a  particular 
manner,  but  that  they  always  ask  themselves  the 
further  and  far  more  important  question,  Why  is 
it  fashioned  just  so,  and  not  otherwise?  Every 
band  or  belt  of  color  on  a  butterfly's  wing,  every 
fold  or  lobe  of  foliage  in  tree,  or  shrub,  or  weed, 
or  creeper,  every  crest  or  knot  of  plumage  on 
parrot  or  humming-bird,  must  surely  have  its  due 
and  sufficient  purpose  in  the  great  balanced  econ- 
omy of  Nature.  As  the  German  observer  Sprengel 
justly  put  it,  when  he  was  led  to  his  marvellous 
investigations  into  the  hues  and  shapes  of  flowers 
by  the  simple  observation  of  a  few  small  hairs  on 
the  petals  of  a  wild  geranium,  "The  wise  Author 
of  Nature  would  certainly  not  have  created  even 
u  hair  in  vain."  Working  down  from  this  lumi- 
nous original  thought,  Si)rengel   gradually  went 

-    2ij6 


EVENING  FLOWERS.  237 

on  to  recognize  tlie  fact  that  every  detail  of  every 
blossom  has  indeed  its  ai>i)ointed  fnnction  in  tl»o 
history  of  the  plant,  and  that  a  little  can.ful 
stndy  will  enable  the  acute  human  observer  to 
unravel  tlie  secret  of  floral  construction  sulVi- 
ciently,  at  least,  to  understand  the  main  purport 
of  the  principal  parts.  Every  flower  differs  in  a 
thousand  small  points  of  shape  and  detail  from 
every  other,  and  for  each  such  difference  there 
must  needs  be  a  good  reason.  Of  course,  all  of 
us  recognize  in  a  general  way  that  there  are 
infinite  meaning  and  purpose  and  design  in  every 
portion  of  external  nature  ;  but  then  we  usually 
recognize  it  in  a  very  vague  fashion  only  —  we 
never  strive  to  realize  it  piecemeal  throughout  all 
creation  in  its  true  complexity.  And  what  we 
are  oftenest  thinking  of,  even  when  we  do  bend 
our  minds  for  a  minute  or  two  at  stray  times  to 
the  beautiful  adaptations  of  external  nature,  is 
chiefly  their  relations  to  the  wants  of  man ; 
whereas,  in  the  world  at  large,  by  far  the  greatest 
number  of  adaptations  are  those  which  relate  to 
the  needs  and  peculiarities  of  the  plant  or  animal 
itself.  Each  organism  and  each  species  is  a  won 
derful  piece  of  complex  mechanism,  so  arranged  as 
to  fit  harmoniously  into  some  particular  niche  in 
nature,  and  with  every  part  exactly  ordained  for 
the  special  function  it  is  intended  to  perform. 
Quite  apart  from  their  secondary  uses  in  minister- 


288  EVENING  FLOWERS. 

ing  to  mairs  artificial  or  natural  neeils,  every  por- 
tion of  every  creature  has  its  primary  use  in 
ministering  to  tlie  welfare  of  the  organism  of 
which  it  forms  a  i)art. 

Most  of  us,  for  example,  have  probably  noticed 
that  a  great  many  white  flowers,  such  as  jasmine, 
stephanotis,  tuberose,  night-flowering  cereus,  and 
jonquil,  have  a  very  peculiar  strong  perfume  — a 
perfume  which  is  pleasant  enough  in  small  quan- 
tities, but  which  becomes  overpoweringly  heavy 
and  induces  faintness  or  headache  in  large  masses. 
Now,  this  peculiar  combination  of  very  sweet 
scent  with  white  flowers  is  no  mere  accidental 
coincidence,  but  has  a  meaning  and  a  reason  of 
its  own  in  the  history  of  the  beautiful  plants 
which  commonly  display  it.  If  one  examines  a 
large  number  of  such  plants  one  after  another, 
one  is  soon  struck  by  the  curious  fact  that  they 
are  almost  witliout  exception  night-blossomers. 
Most  of  them  open  in  the  evening  only,  and 
eitlier  close  entirely  or  fold  back  their  petals 
during  the  daytime.  Moreover,  their  scent  is 
given  forth  at  night  alone,  and  it  then  seems  to 
hang  heavily  upon  tlie  surrounding  air  like  a  per- 
fumed mist  for  severjil  j'ards  around,  as  everybody 
must  have  noticed  in  the  case  of  jasmine  climbing 
around  the  thick  wooden  door-posts  of  some  pic- 
turesque, old-fashioned  cottage.  The  explanation 
of  this  strange  coincidence  is  simple  enough  — 


EVENING  FLOWERS.  289 

tlie  flowers  in  question  are  specially  designed  to 
attract  nip;lit-flyiiig  moths.  Their  honey  is  usu- 
ally concealed  at  the  hottom  of  very  deep  straight 
tubes,  which  only  such  moths  can  probe  by  unroll- 
ing their  long  spiral  proboscis ;  and  the  heavy  per- 
fume is  one  particularly  attractive  to  these  ces- 
thetic  insects,  which  are  thus  enabled  to  discover 
the  hidden  store  of  sweet  nectar  during  the  dusk 
of  evening.  In  the  hours  of  sunshine,  when  the 
proper  moths  are  not  flying  about,  the  plant  econ- 
omizes its  stock  of  scent  by  keeping  the  glands 
which  produce  it  tightly  shut ;  but,  as  soon  as 
twilight  brings  out  its  appointed  visitors,  it  opens 
them  apace,  and  so  advertises  the  neighborhood 
of  the  attractive  honey  to  its  insect  friends. 

For  the  self-same  reason  all  or  almost  all  the 
night-llowering  plants  have  snow-white  blossoms. 
In  the  gray  dusk,  blue  and  red  and  purple  and 
orange,  which  prove  so  attractive  to  the  eyes  of 
bees  during  the  glaring  daytime,  fade  away  alike 
into  dull  inconspicuousness ;  but  pure  white  re- 
flects whatever  little  light  may  still  remain,  and 
so  assists  the  perfume  by  catching  the  eyes  of  the 
moths  and  leading  them  straight  towards  their 
evening  meal  of  scented  honey.  Nocturnal  in- 
sects, like  nocturnal  birds  and  bats,  have  organs 
of  vision  specially  adapted  to  the  slender  light  of 
evening,  and  so  they  can  soon  detect  the  small 
white  patches  which  mark  out  the  flowers  among 


2C0  EVENING  FLOWERS. 

the  (linker  foliage.  Accordingly,  we  often  find 
two  closely  allied  blossoms  diflFering  hardly  at  all  " 
in  form  or  structure,  but  visited  respectively  by  ' 
bees  or  butterilics  on  the  one  hand  and  night- 
flying  moths  on  the  other,  and  with  their  colors 
strictly  adai)ted  to  the  varying  tastes  and  habits 
of  their  wijigcd  associates.  For  example,  the 
common  red  cam])ion  or  day-lychnis  yields  its  honey 
for  diurnal  butterflies  and  bees;  it  is  therefora 
colored  bright  piiik,  is  scentless,  and  opens,  as  its 
name  imports,  in  the  daytime,  shutting  up  again 
more  or  less  completely  as  night  api)roachcs.  The 
equally  common  white  campion  or  night-lychnis, 
on  the  contrary,  yields  its  honey  for  nocturnal 
moths ;  it  is,  therefore,  pure  white  in  liue,  it  dis* 
tils  a  sweet  scent  towards  nightfall,  and  it  opens 
in  the  evening,  fading  or  closing  during  the  heat 
of  the  day.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
evening  primrose,  night-flt)wering  blossoms  are 
very  pale  yellow  instead  of  white ;  but  pale  yellow 
is  equally  well  seen  in  the  dusk,  having,  indeed, 
a  peculiar  lialf-phosphorescent  aj^jjearance  in  the 
early  evening,  which  renders  it  particularly  useful 
for  attracting  moths.  In  no  case,  however,  are 
night-flowering  plants  provided  with  spots,  lines, 
patches  of  color,  or  variegations  upon  the  face  of 
the  petals.  These  curious  marks  are  confined  to 
day-flowering  blossoms,  where  they  serve  as  honey- 
guides  to  point  out  the  position  of  the  nectaries, 


EVENING  FLOWERS.  201 

and  lead  the  inquiring  bee  with  a  minimum  of 
trouble  to  his  store  of  honey.  They  would,  of 
course,  be  invisible  at  night ;  and  so  they  are 
never  found  on  the  white  or  pale  yellow  nocturnal 
flowers,  which  are  invariably  uniform  in  color 
throughout. 

All  these  minute  provisions  and  adaptations  are 
naturally  very  convenient  for  the  bee  and  the 
moth  ;  but  how,  on  the  other  hand,  do  they  bene- 
fit the  flower?  We  said  above  that  every  part  of 
every  organism  has  a  purpose  to  subserve  which 
is  immediately  useful  to  the  organism  to  which  it 
belongs;  and  here  we  seem  ratiier  to  be  pointing 
out  that  the  flowers  are  constituted  in  such  and 
such  ways,  not  for  the  go(.d  of  the  plant,  but  for 
the  good  of  the  bee  or  the  butterfly.  Neverthe- 
less, there  is  an  easy  way  out  of  this  apparent 
paradox.  The  arrangement  is  a  nmtual  one;  the 
insect  does  as  much  for  the  blossom,  in  the  long 
run,  as  the  blossom  does  for  the  insect.  All  that 
the  moth  wants,  of  course,  is  the  honey ;  but,  in 
securing  for  himself  that  sweet  nutriment,  he  per- 
forms unconsciously  a  service  for  the  plant  of  the 
first  importance.  Suppose  we  follow  him  on  his 
rounds  among  the  common  white  campions,  on  a 
summer  evening,  and  see  what  advantage  the 
flowers  derive  from  encouraging  his  airy  visits. 
Attracted  by  the  faint  perfume  and  pale  white 
petals,  he  settles  down,  after  a  minute,  on  a  cam- 


292  EVENING  FLOWERS. 

pion-blossom  with  ten  little  mealy  pollen-bags 
lianging  out  temptingly  at  tlie  end  of  their  long 
stalks  or  filaments.  As  he  thrusts  his  proboscis 
deep  into  the  recesses  of  the  fragrant  flower  in 
search  of  the  honey,  he  dusts  over  the  top  part 
about  his  mouth  with  the  floury  pollen-grains 
which  form  that  sticky  yellow  powder  that  every 
one  must  have  noticed  in  the  centre  of  most  gar- 
den-blossoms. As  long  as  he  goes  on  visiting 
similar  white  campions  provided  with  the  same 
sort  of  pollen-bags,  he  only  continues  to  collect 
more  of  the  soft  yellow  powder  upon  the  base  of 
his  proboscis.  But  by  and  by  he  happens  to 
arrive  at  a  rather  different  flower  of  the  same 
kind,  which  is  alike  in  every  other  respect  to 
those  he  has  already  visited,  but  posseses  in  its 
middle  an  unripe  seed-capsule,  instead  of  pollen- 
bags,  filled  within  by  tiny  formless  embryo  seeds. 
These  embryos  require  the  fertilizing  influence  of 
tlie  pollen  in  order  to  make  them  grow  out  into 
perfect  seeds;  and  the  moth,  in  passing  from  one 
plant  to  another  in  search  of  honey,  unwittingly 
conveys  the  precious  powder  from  the  first  kind  of 
blossom  to  the  budding  seedlets  of  the  other. 
Thus,  while  the  plant  provides  honey  for  the  sus- 
tenance of  the  moth,  the  moth  on  his  part  —  to 
adopt  a  transparent  metaphor  —  repays  the  plant 
by  acting  as  a  common  carrier  of  pollen  from  one 
flower  to  its  nearest  neighbors. 


EVENING  FLOWERS.  293 

The  great  object  of  nature  in  all  these  curiously 
minute  arrangements  is  to  secure  the  production 
of  healthy  seed,  and  so  to  carry  on  the  life  of  the 
various  species  of  plant  from  one  generation  to 
anotlier.  In  many  kinds  of  plants  the  pollen  and 
the  seed-capsules  are  borne  side  by  side  in  the  same 
flowers ;  but  even  then  care  is  particularly  taken 
that  they  do  not  both  mature  simultaneously,  or 
else  some  other  device  is  introduced  by  means  of 
which  the  chief  end  of  nature  —  cross-fertilization 
of  the  seeds  in  one  blossom  by  the  pollen  from 
another  —  is  duly  secured.  In  these  common 
white  campions  the  means  adopted  is  a  simpler 
one ;  the  pollen-bags  are  placed  in  separate  flowers 
from  the  seeds,  so  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
for  the  capsule  to  get  accidentally  dusted  over  by 
the  falling  grains,  as  sometimes  occurs  in  other 
cases.  Indeed,  a  few  kinds  of  plant  almost  invari- 
ably thus  fertilize  their  own  seeds ;  but  then  they 
are,  with  very  few  exceptions,  the  weediest  and 
most  degenerate  of  all  flowers.  All  the  beautiful 
and  conspicuous  ornaments  of  our  gardens  are 
deliberately  designed  to  encourage  the  visits  of 
bees  or  butterflies,  unless  they  be  of  tro[)ical  ori- 
gin, in  which  case  they  are  sometimes  specially 
intended  to  attract  the  eyes  of  humming-birds 
and  honey-sucking  paroquets.  Such  southern 
birds,  with  their  long  bills  and  flickering  tongues, 
are  quite  as  well  adapted  as  moths  or  bees   to 


294  EVENING  FLOWERS. 

cany  the  pollen  from  one  blossom  to  another,  and 
so  in  the  end  to  secure  tlie  continuance  of  their 
own  food-plants  to  future  summers.  Tropical 
flowers  of  this  class  have  usually  very  deep  funnel- 
shaped  bells,  and  many  of  them  may  be  seen  as 
familiar  decorations  of  our  greenhouses  and  con- 
servatories. Blossoms  with  such  long  tubes 
would  be  useless  and  impossible  in  a  wild  state 
in  northern  climates;  we  have  no  birds  fitted  to 
visit  them,  and  no  insects  with  a  proboscis  long 
enough  to  reach  their  store  of  honey,  so  that  in 
our  own  woodlands  they  would  necessarily  die 
out  at  the  end  of  a  single  life,  for  want  of  means 
to  set  their  seeds,  and  so  continue  their  existence 
in  the  persons  of  their  seedling  descendants. 

The  whole  world  of  nature  is  everywhere  full  of 
these  marvellous  inter-relations,  which  modern 
science  is  only  just  beginning  to  unravel  in  all 
their  complexity.  As  we  see  at  once  from  this 
single  example,  the  merest  spots  and  lines  and 
hues  and  scents  of  flowers  are  never  without  their 
sufficient  purpose ;  and  if  we  cannot,  at  a  first 
glance,  find  out  their  meanings,  we  can  almost 
always  begin  to  spell  tliem  out,  at  least,  by  dint 
of  longer  and  more  patient  study.  The  hairs  on 
the  moth's  proboscis  are  themselves  there  with 
the  deliberate  object  of  collecting  the  fertilizing 
powder  from  the  flowers  it  visits;  and,  if  they 
were  not  there,  the  plants  upon  which  the  moth 


EVENING  FLOWERS.  295 

feeds  must  very  soon  die  out  altogether ;  for  they 
are  dependent  for  their  fertilization  upon  the 
kind  offices  of  their  insect  visitors,  who  could  not 
convey  the  pollen  from  one  plant  to  another  with- 
out the  intervention  of  these  inconspicuous  hut 
useful  little  hairs.  It  is  indeed  a  narrow  view  of 
nature  which  regards  it  all  as  too  exclusively  de- 
signed with  a  sole  eye  to  the  comforts  and  neces- 
sities of  the  human  race.  Man,  of  course,  forms 
the  heatl  and  crown  of  the  whole  visible  creation  ; 
but  he  is,  after  all,  only  as  it  were  the  last  and 
greatest  wheel  in  one  vast  and  harmonious  univer- 
sal mechanism,  every  other  wheel  in  which  has 
equally  its  appointed  part  to  play  in  the  system  of 
the  cosmos.  Each  of  these  minor  wheels,  how- 
ever inconspicuous  to  us,  has  its  own  cogs  and 
fittings,  which  enable  it  to  work  smoothly  with 
all  the  rest.  The  plant  has  its  leaves  and  stem 
and  roots  for  its  own  purposes ;  it  has  its  bright 
flower  primarily  to  attract  the  insect  visitors,  and 
only  secondarily  to  gratify  the  human  vision  ;  it 
lias  its  fruit  and  seed  originally  for  the  continu- 
ance of  its  own  kind  to  future  generations,  and 
incidentally  only  for  our  use  and  sustenance.  In 
its  own  way  it  is  as  well  worthy  of  minute  study 
as  the  human  body  itself;  and,  when  uiinutely 
studied,  it  repays  us  well  by  disclosing  at  every 
step  new  and  hitherto  unsuspected  correlations 
with  all  the    rest   of  the   animal   and   vegetable 


296  EVRNINO  FLOWERS. 


world.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  new  oatii- 
ral  history,  every  living  thing  is  thus  a  sort  of 
perpetual  puzzle,  a  practical  problem,  a  series  of 
curious  riddles  for  human  ingenuity  to  unravel  if 
It  can ;  and  when  we  have  read  the  secret  of  each 
to  the  bottom,  we  discover  a  fresh  charm  and  a 
new  meaning  in  every  neglected  detaU  of  the 
entire  physical  uni\erse. 


XXVII. 

BEAUTY. 

Beauty,  says  the  old  saw,  is  but  skin-deep; 
yet  the  proverb  itself,  as  a  great  philosopher  has 
justly  remarked,  is,  after  all,  but  a  skin-deep 
proverb.  To  be  sure,  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
beauty  lies  on  the  very  surface  of  a  liuman  face ; 
take  the  most  lovely  woman  in  America,  and  let  a 
skin-disease  ruin  her  complexion,  and  you  reduce 
her  at  once,  if  not  to  ugliness,  at  least  to  compara- 
tive uncomeliness  in  the  undiscerning  eyes  of 
almost  half  humanity.  Yet  there  is  a  profounder 
and  truer  sense  in  which  beauty  is  anything  but 
skin-deep;  for,  though  injury  to  the  skin  may 
conceal  or  alter  it,  a  great  deal  more  than  such 
mere  external  characteristics  is  involved  in  mak- 
ing a  man  handsome  or  a  woman  beautiful.  In 
the  very  deepest  sense  of  all  it  would  be  far  more 
correct  to  say  that  beauty  depends  upon  the  high- 
est conformity  to  the  ideal  of  our  race,  alike  in 
physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  qualities.  Our 
love  for  human  beauty  is  in  the  last  resort  a  love 
for  all  that  is  healthy,  noble,  and  admirable  in  the 
human  mind  and  in  the  human  body.     This  view, 

207 


298  BEAUTY. 

though  not  the  one  most  commonly  accepted,  is  a 
far  more  inspiring  one  tlian  the  base  idea  that 
beauty'  resides  merely  in  the  outer  film  of  human- 
ity, and  it  is  at  the  same  time  far  truer  also. 

If  one  looks  the  matter  for  a  moment  in  the 
fjice,  it  is  quite  clear  tliat  the  opposite  belief  cr.r.- 
not  seriously  be  defended  on  its  own  merits. 
Suppose  it  possible  that  we  were  to  consider 
people  beautiful  without  any  regard  to  their 
healtliiness,  their  intelligence,  or  their  moral 
qualities;  what  would  be  the  consequence? 
Why,  we  should  to  a  great  extent  choose  one 
another  in  marriage  and  friendship  quite  indepen- 
dently of  these  very  important  considerations, 
and  the  result  would  be  that  the  deformed,  the 
unhealthy,  the  hopelessly  stui)id,  and  the  hope- 
lessly cruel  or  selfish  peo[)le  would  run  just  as 
good  a  chance  of  bringing  up  families  in  their 
own  image  as  the  sound,  the  healthy,  the  able, 
and  the  sweet-tempered.  But  Nature  in  that  case 
would  surely,  though  perhaps  slowly,  weed  out 
all  the  persons  with  such  unwholesome  and  un- 
desirable tastes.  There  are  indeed  in  the  world 
around  us  many  men  and  women  with  perverted 
judgments  who  do  not  feel  repelled  by  narrow 
brains,  scowling  brows,  coarse  sensuous  mouths, 
and  unhealthy-looking  faces.  But  these  people 
die  out  from  generation  to  generation  as  a  direct 
consequence  of  their  own  foolishness  or  evil  dis- 


BEAUTY.  299 

positions;  their  children  die  young  of  the  heredi- 
tary taint,  or  drink  tlieniselves  into  untimely 
graves,  or  fall  into  crime  and  pass  the  greater  part 
of  their  short  lives  in  prisons  or  workhouses.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  healthy  persons  with  sound 
natural  tastes  who  prefer  fresh  cheeks,  smiling 
faces,  hearty  limbs,  and  open  foreheads  to  the  out- 
ward and  visible  signs  of  decay  and  degeneracy 
themselves  live  long  and  happily,  on  the  average 
of  instances,  and  rear  large  and  vigorous  families, 
who,  in  turn,  inherit  the  active  brains,  strong 
bodies,  and  good  moral  impulses  of  their  fathers 
and  mothers.  In  this  way  the  instinct  for  beauty 
implanted  by  Nature  in  the  hearts  of  every  one  of 
Ls  is  really  an  instinct  impelling  us  immediately 
towards  all  that  is  best  and  soundest  in  humanity, 
and  causing  us  to  feel  an  instantaneous  repug- 
nance towards  all  that  is  unwholesome,  uncanny, 
or  undesirable.  It  is  Nature's  automatic  advice  to 
young  people  about  to  marr}^  urging  them  to 
choose  rather  the  best,  the  soundest,  and  the 
worthiest,  than  the  worst,  the  weakest,  and  the 
basest. 

Look  first  at  the  merely  pliysical  qualities.  Is 
it  not  immediately  clear  that  on  the  whole  a 
beautiful  person,  be  it  man  or  woman,  means  usu- 
ally a  perfectly  sound  and  healthy  person?  We 
admire  a  good  figure  and  stout  hearty  limbs, 
while  we  do  not  care  physically  for  very  puny 


300  BEAUTT. 

undersized  persons,  or  for  thin  spindle-shanks,  or 
for  null  formation  or  deformity  of  any  kind.  We 
prefer  the  well  made  calves  of  a  cricketer  to 
bandy  or  bow  legs,  and  we  praise  a  full,  round, 
well  j)roportioned  arm,  rather  than  a  skinny  angu- 
lar elbow.  Excess  or  defect  in  any  part  dis- 
pleases us.  What  we  like  to  see  is  the  most  per- 
fect adjustment  of  all  the  parts  to  one  another. 
Even  very  short  or  very  tall  people  are  handsome 
if  they  are  properly  proportioned,  but  not  if  they 
look  stunted,  or  gawky,  or  overgrown,  or  have 
heads  too  big  or  too  small  for  their  accompan3'ing 
bodies.  Nobody  admires  a  very  long  nose,  nor 
one  too  short  either ;  nobody  is  favorably  im- 
pressed by  a  very  large  mouth,  or  by  immense 
ears,  or  by  a  stumpy  neck,  or  by  excessive 
stoutness.  We  demand  for  our  standard  of 
beauty  the  exact  mean  or  perfect  central  model  of 
the  human  race.  Any  very  wide  divergence  from 
this  central  and  healthy  model  strikes  us  as  un- 
comely; if  the  divergence  is  in  the  direction  of 
positive  disease  or  malformation,  we  usually 
regard  it  as  distinctly  ugly. 

So  again,  to  descend  to  details,  we  admire  a 
clear  complexion  and  rosy  cheeks,  which  are  the 
proper  accompaniment  of  high  health.  We  dis- 
like pallor,  wliich  goes  with  exhaustion,  or  over- 
work, or  a  feeble  heart ,  and  we  are  less  attracted 
by  sallowness,  which  in  most   cases  indicates   a 


BEAUTY.  301 

bad  clij:festion.  So  decidedly  do  we  associate 
these  signs  of  health  in  the  skin  with  all  our 
notions  of  the  highest  beauty  that  pearl-powder 
and  rouge  have  been  invented  to  simulate  the 
virtue  in  those  who  do  not  naturally  possess  it,  or 
at  least  to  heighten  it  in  those  who  do.  Pearly- 
white  teeth,  once  more,  are  great  elements  of 
beauty  in  such  as  can  boast  of  them ;  and  the 
soundness  of  the  teeth  has  mucli  to  do  with  the 
digestion,  and  therefore  with  all  the  general 
health  of  the  whole  body.  People  with  bad  teeth 
sufler  much  directly  from  the  defect,  and  still 
more  indirectly  in  the  insufficient  chewing  of  all 
their  food.  If  we  take  these  two  small  matters 
alone,  it  is  quite  clear  at  once  that  the  idea  of 
beauty  we  form  about  them  is  far  from  skin-deep; 
it  is  the  natural  expression  of  a  great  underlying 
physical  truth.  If  people  did  not  care  as  a  rule 
whether  those  they  were  going  to  choose  as 
partners  for  life  had  good  complexions  or  good 
teeth,  the  result  would  be  that  many  more  chil- 
dren in  the  next  generation  would  suffer  from 
indigestion  and  toothache,  and  that  the  race  in 
the  long  run  would  thereby  be  permanently  weak- 
ened. Of  course,  when  a  young  man  falls  in  love, 
he  does  not  consciously  think  to  himself  whether 
his  lady-love  has  a  sound  digestion  and  a  strong 
lieart;  but  he  is  attracted  to  a  certain  extent  — 
in  most  instances  —  by  the  outward  and  visible 


V 
i 


302  BEAUTY. 

signs  of  tliese  inward  virtnes,  and  the  original 
attraction  is  no  small  part  of  the  total  reasons  that 
influence  him  in  making  his  choice.  Nature  has 
not  implanted  these  instinctive  likes  and  dislikes 
in  our  hearts  for  nothing;  they  are  there,  what- 
ever people  may  say,  for  good  reasons,  and  they 
are  part  of  the  wise  provision  whereby,  on  the 
whole,  the  efliciency  and  soundness  of  our  race 
are  kept  up  from  one  generation  to  another. 

It  is  just  the  same  with  the  external  tokens  of 
strength  and  vigor  in  men  —  the  flowing  beard, 
the  fine  athletic  limbs,  the  agile  movements,  the 
frank,  hearty,  open  countenance.  What  consti- 
tutes a  handsome  man  is,  as  a  rule,  very  much  the 
same  assemblage  of  characteristics  as  constitutes  a 
good  oarsman,  a  good  cricketer,  a  good  soldier, 
and  a  good  workman.  Health  has  been  well 
defined  as  the  ability  to  do  a  good  day's  work ; 
handsomeness  in  men  might  be  defined  as  the 
external  signs  of  the  ability  to  go  on  doing  a  good 
day's  work  for  the  best  part  of  a  long  lifetime. 
There  are  of  course  cases  where  beautiful  women 
nnd  handsome  men  are  far  from  physically  strong; 
but  in  such  cases,  if  we  look  a  little  below  the 
surface,  we  shall  generally  find  that  they  are 
handsome,  in  spite  of  some  particular  source  of 
weakness,  because  most  of  their  other  qualities 
are  sound  and  wholesome.  Thus  a  woman  may 
be   very   sweet-looking   in   spite   of    bad    health, 


BEAUTY.  803 

because  wc  see  in  her  face  evident  signs  of  intelli- 
gence, of  tenderness,  of  delicate  feeling,  of  iino 
syinpatljy ;  and  these  positive  good  qualities  may 
more  than  outbalance  any  slight  want  of  physical 
stamina.  But  in  all  such  instances  it  is  only  that 
one  element  of  perfect  beauty  is  wanting  —  in  no 
circumstances  could  we  call  anvbodv  handsome  in 
whom  there  was  a  positive  cleliciency  even  of 
physical  perfection,  such  as  a  very  frightful  face, 
or  a  very  distorted  featu'-e,  or  a  very  bloated  and 
unwholesome  countenance. 

Intellectual  qualities  are  equally  necessary  in 
order  to  make  u  face  truly  beautiful  in  any  high 
or  thorough  sense.  A  very  low  or  narrow  fore- 
head—  not  one  on  which  merely  the  hair  growu 
low,  but  a  naturally  contracted  brc .,  — is  far  from 
our  ideal  of  beauty  cither  in  man  or  woman.  A 
dull  and  heavy  eye  is  unpleasant  to  us  — a  bright, 
intelligent,  speaking  eye,  on  the  other  hand, 
immediately  attracts  us.  Much  of  what  we  call 
expression  in  ordinary  language  is  really  the 
external  indication  of  a  quick  and  vivid  native 
intellect;  and,  however  much  we  may  admire  in 
repose,  especially  in  sculpture,  a  clear-cut  and 
statuesque  face  devoid  of  movement,  we  never 
admire  it  so  much  in  actual  life  as  one  of  those 
faces  in  which  the  signs  of  inner  thought  .^nd 
passing  feeling  are  ah 'ays  coming  and  going"  in 
ceaseless   change  upon  the  ever-varying  and   re- 


804  BEAUTY. 

Rponsive  features.  Once  more,  "  u  rabbit  mouth 
tliat  is  ever  agape"  displeases  us;  the  seuii-idiotio 
look  of  some  dull  and  foolish  people  positively 
outweighs  in  many  cases  a  considerable  amount  of 
regularity  and  beauty  of  feature.  But  an  intelli- 
gent face  which  combines  the  high  or  broad  fore- 
head, the  quick  or  clear  eye,  the  shapely  mouth 
and  under  jaw,  the  outward  glow  of  sensible  feel- 
ing in  movements  of  the  muscles  —  such  a  face 
must  be  at  least  good-looking,  even  in  spite  of 
some  considerable  defects  of  individual  portions. 
Nay,  we  have  even  known  cases  where  intellectual 
handsomeness  of  this  type,  in  men  at  least,  has 
actually  outlived  great  and  positive  bodily  dis- 
figurements. One  of  the  handsomest  nien  we 
liave  ever  seen  had  had  his  face  cruelly  injured  in 
early  life  by  a  blow  from  a  cricket-ball;  but, 
though  the  bridge  of  the  nose  was  completely 
broken,  and  though  in  repose  the  face  was  not  a 
beautiful  one.  owing  to  this  unfortunate  defect, 
yet,  the  moment  it  was  lighted  up  by  animation 
in  conversation,  the  natural  brightness  of  the 
eyes,  the  quick  readiness  of  the  intelligent  smile, 
the  ease  with  which  every  feature  responded  to 
the  brilliancy  of  the  speaker's  wit,  combined  with 
the  charm  of  graceful  and  appropriate  action, 
mij^  one  forget  at  once  the  accidental  disfigure- 
and  see  only  the  native  handsomeness  and 
Twer  of  that  originally  striking  and  noble  coun- 


BEAUTY,  805 

tenance.  A  merely  nice-looking  face  of  a  com- 
monplace sort  would  have  lost  all  its  good  looks 
under  such  a  severe  trial  —  a  truly  fine  and  intel- 
ligent one  merely  suffers  the  loss  of  its  first  effect, 
but  still  retains  all  its  inherent  nower  to  please 
after  the  first  novelty  of  the  queer  external 
appearance  has  worn  off,  and  the  features,  as  we 
rightly  say,  continue  to  grow  upon  us. 

Even  more  important  to  every  right-thinking 
and  sensible  person  than  these  outer  signs  of 
intellectual  vigor  is  the  natural  evidence  in  every 
face  of  the  underlying  moral  qualities,  for  good  or 
for  evil.  A  gently  smiling  face  is  pleasing  to  all 
of  us;  a  scowling  or  frowning  one  is  naturally 
unpleasant.  So  deeply  ingrained  in  our  very 
natures  is  this  primordial  distinction  of  feeling 
that  even  children  in  arms  will  smile  responsive 
to  their  mother's  smile,  and  cry  at  a  frown  or  a 
grimace  from  their  nurse  or  a  stranger.  Good 
temper  makes  even  plain  or  foolish  faces  often 
more  than  merely  endurable ;  a  fixed  and  settled 
look  of  discontent,  or  querulousness,  or  sulky 
temperament  often  spoils  the  most  even  and  regu- 
lar features.  Some  otherwise  good  faces  are 
rendered  unpleasing  by  surliness,  some  by  pride, 
some  by  vanity,  some  by  vacuity,  some  by  malevo- 
lence, and  some  by  envy,  hatred,  malice,  and^l 
uncharitableness.  Still  more  immediately  pairi^l 
and  distressing  to  every  beholder  are  the  visible 


306  BEAUTY. 

bodily  tokens  of  vice  or  criminality  —  the  horrid 
bloated  face  of  the  habitual  drunkard,  the  un- 
wholesome j)imply  countenance  of  the  dissipated 
young  man,  the  liard,  cruel,  unlovely  features  of 
the  most  degraded  men  and  women  in  our  worst 
neglected  slums  and  purlieus.  Lowest  of  all  and 
most  liideous  of  all  are  the  characteristic  criminal 
types — the  bullet-headed,  bull-necked  men  with 
low  receding  foreheads,  horrible  flat,  broad,  coarse 
noses,  large,  heavy,  projecting  under  jaws,  cruel, 
crafty,  sensuous  eyes,  and  a  general  slouch  of  gait 
and  manner  which  at  once  bespeaks  the  slinking 
attitude  of  mind  and  body  of  the  habitual  enemy 
of  society.  Such  men  inspire  us  at  once  with 
horror  and  loathing.  To  this  lowest  and  most 
degraded  type  of  all  alone  do  we  riglitly  apply 
the  epithet  "hideous."  liideousness,  in  fact, 
implies  always  something  of  instinctive  moral  dis- 
gust as  well  as  of  mere  i)hysical  repulsion.  If 
anybody  doubts,  indeed,  whether  the  sense  of 
beauty  is  intended  by  Nature  as  a  guiding  light  to 
us  in  our  choice  of  partners  and  associates  in  life, 
he  has  only  to  look  at  these  worst  instances,  and 
he  will  feel  at  once  how  instinctively  car  very 
eyes  and  senses  warn  us  against  them  at  first 
sight.  It  is  of  course  true,  as  moralists  have  long 
told  us,  that  a  pretty  fjice  is  not  everything  ;  but 
iFTO  also  equally  true  that  it  is  not  nothing  either. 
It  tells  us   a  great  deal  that  is  worth  knowing 


BEAUTY.  S07 


about  its  owner;  and,  as  it  generally  tells  the 
truth,  it  is  one  of  the  means  by  which,  on  the 
average  of  cases,  we  are  led  to  make  a  just  selec- 
tion. If  every  pretty  face  is  not  necessarily  good, 
it  is  at  least  true  that  e\Qvy  good  face  is  in  the 
iiighest  and  best  sense  pretty. 


XXVIII. 

GENIUS  AND  TALENT. 

About  fifty  years  ago  it  used  to  be  the  fashion 
among  men  of  letters  to  draw  invidious  distinc- 
tions between  genius  and  talent,  very  much  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  last-named  highly  respectable 
and  desirable  attribute.  Now  all  comparisons,  as 
everybody  well  knows,  are  naturally  odious;  but 
the  comparison  between  the  two  particular  forms 
of  ability  —  being  usually  drawn  by  the  people 
who  considered  themselves  to  possess  genius  in 
the  strictest  sense,  while  most  of  their  contempor- 
aries possessed  only  that  inferior  article,  talent  — 
was  of  course  a  peculiarly  offensive  one.  The 
genius,  it  used  to  be  said,  needed  no  driving  of 
his  lofty  Pegasus ;  the  steeds  that  drew  his  lordly 
chariot  could  move  as  they  liked  of  their  own 
accord,  and  were  sure  to  lead  him  in  the  end, 
without  any  guidance  on  his  own  part,  to  some 
splendid,  glorious,  or  dazzling  conclusion.  Mere 
talent  must  pore  over  and  ponder  its  humble 
work;  but  genius,  noble  genius,  could  afford  to 
disregard  such  human  weaknesses  as  conscien- 
tious labor,  and  to  pour  its  unpremeditated  lay 

806 


GENIUS  AND   TALENT.  309 

forth  at  its  ease  upon  the  listeninj^  ears  of  an 
astonished  and  delighted  public.  Taking  pains, 
our  geniuses  told  us,  was  a  degradation  far  be- 
neath their  exalted  level ;  they  had  only  to  act  as 
the  inspiration  seized  them,  and  they  could  turn 
out  magnificent  works  of  art  or  literature  almost 
unconscious  of  the  slightest  effort. 

This  was  the  high-flown  sentiment  of  a  higli- 
flown  age,  an  age  that  too  often  allowed  itself  to 
be  led  astray  by  its  own  maxims,  and  to  mistake 
the  rapid  outpouring  of  fluent  eccentricity  for  the 
true  note  of  divine  genius.  On  the  otlier  hand,  it 
has  been  well  said  by  a  far  more  profound  and 
genuine  thinker  that  genius  is  nothing  more  than 
an  infinite  capacity  for  taking  trouble.  This  hist 
description  indeed  offends  at  once  against  many 
people's  conventional  notions  as  to  the  sponta- 
neity and  unconsciousness  of  genius ;  but  it  is,  we 
nevertheless  believe,  by  far  the  truest,  the  deep- 
est, and  the  best  one.  And  it  is  also  a  very 
encouraging  and  helpful  view  for  every  one  of  us; 
for  it  not  only  breaks  down  the  imaginary  barrier 
between  genius  and  talent,  but  even  that  between 
either  genius  or  talent  and  mere  ordinary  hard- 
working industry.  It  suggests  this  great  and 
important  truth,  that  nothing  really  useful  or 
valuable  can  ever  be  done  without  application, 
and  that,  with  application,  there  is  liardly  any- 
thing quite  inaccessible  to  us.     The  genius,  we 


310  GENIUS  AND   TALENT. 

venture  indeed  paradoxically  to  believe,  is  noth- 
ing more,  in  tlie  last  resort,  than  a  man  endowed 
with  an  extraordinary  capacity  for  taking  pains. 
Whatever  he  attempts  he  endeavors  to  do,  not 
well  enough,  not  tolerably,  not  nicely,  not  per- 
functorily, but  as  perfectly  and  as  admirabl}'  as 
by  any  possibility  his  hands  or  brains  can  help 
him  to  do  it.  lie  is  simply  the  very  best  and 
most  careful  worljman,  the  workman  who  takes 
the  greatest  trouble  with  the  particular  work  — 
be  it  what  it  may —  that  he  is  called  upon  to  do. 

All  this,  of  course,  is  extremely  opposed  to  one 
very  common  idea  of  the  genius  as  essentially  a 
man  of  vagaries  and  flightiness.  The  sort  of 
person  too  often  pointed  out  to  one  in  private  life 
as  "  quite  a  genius"  is  the  erratic,  clever,  lazy  do- 
nothing,  who  never  turns  out  anything  at  all  in 
any  way,  but  potters  about  uselessly  all  his  days 
on  the  bare  outskirts  of  his  trade  or  profession. 
That  however  is  not  what  we  find  actually  to 
have  been  the  case  with  all  the  great  men  whom 
everybody  immediately  recognizes  in  life  at  large 
as  the  undoubted  geniuses  of  fact  and  history. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  art  of  invention.  Does 
anybody  for  a  moment  suppose  that  the  genius  of 
James  Watt,  for  example,  struck  out  all  at  once 
the  idea  of  the  steam-engine  in  a  single  flash  of 
inspiration?  By  no  means.  Only  long  and  slow 
and  patient  thinking-out  of  every  part  and  every 


GENIUS  AND   TALENT.  311 

detail,  accompanied  by  constant  trial  of  innumer- 
able models  and  constant  alteration  of  joints  or 
fittings,  could  ever  have  finally  produced  that 
magnificent  practical  result  of  the  completed 
engine.  Take,  again,  the  art  of  discovery.  Does 
anybody  for  a  moment  suppose  that  Newton 
really  worked  out  his  whole  splendid  theory  of 
gravitation  within  half  an  hour  of  tlie  accidental 
second  when  he  happened  to  see  that  too  cele- 
brated apple  fall  from  the  apple-tree?  So  far  is 
this  from  being  truly  the  case  that  he  actually 
waited  for  thirteen  years  before  publishing  the 
first  outline  of  his  theory,  in  order  to  obtain 
better  information  about  the  moon's  weight  than 
any  existing  at  the  time  when  he  began  his 
memorable  researches.  Take,  once  more,  the  art 
of  war.  Does  anybody  imagine  that  Csesar  and 
Napoleon  overran  all  iLurope  with  their  gigantic 
armies  by  mere  force  of  innate  cleverness,  without 
paying  any  attention  whatsoever  to  the  enormous 
difficulties  of  the  undertaking?  Why,  Ca3sar 
himself  shows  us  in  his  Commentaries  that  lie 
looked  with  the  interest  of  a  commissariat  clerk 
at  the  pettiest  details  of  breakfast  and  dinner  for 
his  hungry  soldiers ;  while  Napoleon's  eye  never 
allowed  the  smallest  matter  of  discipline  or  tactics 
to  escape  it  even  in  the  midst  of  the  severest 
engagement.  It  is  just  the  same  in  everything 
else.       No    man,    we    believe,   ever    achieves    a 


312  GENIUS  AND   TALENT. 

great    result    except    by    taking    commensurate 
trouble. 

But  is  it  so  in  art  and  in  literature  ?  Surely 
there,  at  least,  the  genius  is  born  with  all  his  gifts 
already  instinctively  bound  up  in  him,  and  he 
brings  them  forth  in  due  time,  without  even  an 
effort,  before  the  eyes  of  an  admiring  world  !  Not 
a  bit  of  it.  The  greatest  painters  have  toiled  late 
and  early  over  the  profound  mysteries  of  perspec- 
tive and  light  and  shade  and  local  color  and 
anatomy  and  the  chemistry  of  pigments;  they 
have  studied  ceaselessly  from  models  and  drapery, 
they  have  striven  to  perfect  themselves  in  all  the 
technique  of  a  peculiarly  difficult  and  complicated 
art.  Michael  Angelo  and  Leonardo  and  the  other 
giants  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  thought  no 
detail  of  anatomy  or  of  physics  beneath  their 
notice ;  they  studied  the  human  frame  as  if  they 
were  going  to  be  doctors,  the  laws  of  matter  as  if 
they  were  going  to  be  mechanical  engineers,  and 
the  principles  of  optics  as  if  they  were  going  to  be 
manufacturers  of  telescopes  and  magnifying- 
glasses.  Literature  bears  on  its  face  to  a  less 
degree  the  marks  of  study ;  but  even  here  every 
great  poet  is  known  to  have  spent  hours  and 
hours  in  polishing  and  repolishing  his  every  line, 
while  a  single  essay  of  Macaulay's  or  a  single 
chapter  of  John  Stuart  Mill's  often  bears  on  each 
page   the  stamp  of  days   or  weeks   of   reading. 


GENIUS  AND   TALENT.  313 

thinking,  condensing,  and  arranging.  George 
Eliot  took  years  to  elaborate  the  i)lot  and  charac- 
ters of  each  of  her  novels;  and  a  great  living 
philosopher  is  known  to  employ  a  whole  morning 
in  marshalling  and  dictating  the  matter  already 
prepared  for  a  single  paragraph. 

That  is  how  genius,  real  and  recognized  genius, 
always  goes  to  work  at  its  own  vocation.  We  do 
not  say  that  much  does  not  depend  upon  natural 
gifts  —  that  would  indeed  be  grossly  untrue  ;  but 
the  most  important  of  these  natural  gifts,  we  main- 
tain, is,  after  all,  the  gift  of  application.  Indeed 
we  are  not  sure  that  we  might  not  with  greater 
truth  exactly  reverse  the  ordinary  estimate,  and 
say  that  genius  is  really  talent  backed  up  by 
application.  The  man  of  talent  too  often  relies 
upon  his  natural  abilities ;  he  is  too  ready  to  think 
that  his  mere  cleverness  will  stand  him  in  good 
stead  of  hard  work,  profound  study,  constant  care, 
the  ceaseless  exercise  of  intelligent  attention. 
The  consequence  is  that  he  frequently  turns  out  a 
brilliant  failure.  The  true  genius,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  born  with  an  unquenchable  desire  to  do 
his  best,  and  to  perfect  himself  by  all  the  means 
in  his  power  for  his  own  special  and  chosen  func- 
tion. Gibson,  the  great  English  sculptor,  was  a 
born  genius  in  the  artistic  way,  and  he  was 
ai)prenticed  at  first  to  a  wood-carver  and  then  to 
a  stone-cutter.     The  lad  of  mere  talent,  in  such 


314  QENIUS  AND   TALENT. 

circumstances,  would  liave  considered  liimself  a 
divinely  gifted  sculptor,  and  would  have  begun  at 
once  turning  out  marble  statues  by  the  light  of 
nature  as  fast  as  he  could  make  them.  But  Gib- 
son knew  bfttter.  He  knew  he  was  a  genius,  and 
he  resolved  to  give  himself  a  fair  chance.  In  his 
spare  hours  he  went  to  an  anatomy-class  in  Liver- 
pool, among  the  young  surgeons,  and  thoroughly 
learnt  the  bones  and  muscles  of  the  human  frame. 
He  studied  drawing,  modelling,  and  carving;  he 
omitted  no  chance  of  seeing  and  comparing  Greek 
and  Italian  sculpture ;  and  at  last,  with  what 
slender  means  he  had  been  able  to  save  from  his 
scanty  wages,  he  went  to  Rome  itself  to  study 
under  Canova,  the  greatest  master  then  living. 
While  there,  he  met  a  young  man  of  talent,  a 
rising  sculptor,  who  had  come  to  Rome,  like  him- 
self, to  look  at  the  statues,  but  who  disdained  the 
aid  of  masters  and  instructors,  as  beneath  his 
greatness.  Gibson  thought  very  poorly  of  this 
self-sufficient  rising  sculptor.  The  young  man 
went  home  to  England,  made  statues  by  the  light 
of  nature,  and  was  utterly  forgotten :  Gibson 
stopped  at  Rome,  spent  years  of  his  life  under  his 
distinguished  master,  wasted  hours  —  as  many 
people  would  have  said  —  over  the  mere  turns 
and  folds  of  a  piece  of  drapery,  and  rose  in  the 
end  to  be   the  greatest  sculptor  whom  England 


GENIUS  AND    TALENT.  315 

has  ever   yet   produced,  with   the   one    doubtful 
exception  of  John  Fiiixnum. 

The  hite  Mr.  Darwin,  the  foiyider  of  the 
modern  pliilosophical  scliool  of  natural  history, 
was  perhaps  tlie  most  striking  example  that  ever 
lived  of  genius  considered  as  an  infinite  capacity 
for  taking  trouble.  With  a  marvellously  wide 
and  comprehensive  brain,  capable  of  organizing 
and  arranging  the  vastest  masses  of  solid  facts, 
and  of  discovering  and  formulating  the  profound 
est  underlying  scientific  principles,  Darwin  could 
still  devote  his  time  with  the  utmost  patience  to 
collecting  and  observing  the  minutest  details  of 
habit  or  function  in  climbing  plants,  or  insect-eat- 
ing leaves,  or  common  earthworms.  No  point 
was  too  small  for  liis  vigorous  intelligence,  if  only 
by  its  aid  some  light  could  be  thrown  upon  a 
doubtful  process  in  the  economy  of  nature;  no 
pains  were  too  great  for  his  inexhaustible  pa- 
tience, if  only  some  truth  was  to  be  discovered  or 
some  principle  made  clear.  The  same  man  who 
could  survey  the  whole  field  of  geological  time 
with  his  calm  and  far-seeing  eye,  and  who  could 
point  out  the  laws  of  development  for  the  entire 
vegetable  and  animal  world,  could  also  bend  his 
attention  for  hours  together  to  the  pettiest  and 
most  trivial  details  of  how  the  root  of  a  sprouting 
pea  twisted  in  the  sunlight,  or  how  a  peacock  dis- 
played his  gorgeous  tail,  in  the  absence  of  any 


316  OEXIVS  AND   TALENT. 

other  admiring  spectator,  before  tlie  unobservant 
eyes  of  the  doniestic  pig.  One  of  liis  servants 
once  remarked  to  a  hidy  of  the  family  that  "  mas- 
ter" would  bo  much  livelier  if  he  had  something 
to  do,  "for  I  saw  him  only  this  morjiing  standing 
for  half  an  hour  with  his  eyes  straight  before  him, 
looking  at  a  plant  growing  out  in  the  conserva- 
tory." The  great  philosopher  was  really  engnged 
all  that  time  in  watching  the  effect  of  a  ray  of 
sunlight  in  twisting  a  leaf  out  of  its  original  di-ec- 
tion.  In  itself,  such  an  observation  may  seem 
simple  and  trivial  enough;  but  it  was  from  an 
immense  number  like  it  that  Darwin  finally  built 
up  those  great  and  embracing  theories  which  have 
done  more  to  influence  modern  thought,  for  good 
or  for  evil  —  take  it  as  we  will  —  than  any  others 
ever  broached  since  the  sixteenth  century. 

This  view  of  the  relations  between  genius  and 
talent  has  one  great  point  to  recommend  it  —  in 
the  ordinary  language  of  Scotch  theology,  it  is  in- 
deed a  very  comfortable  doctrine.  If  genius  be 
really  nothing  more  than  an  exceptional  capacity 
for  taking  pains,  then  each  one  of  us  can  come 
much  nearer  to  being  a  genius  by  our  own  delib- 
erate exertions  than  we  perhaps  ever  before  sus- 
pected. Instead  of  these  exceptional  persons 
being  divided  from  common  humanity,  as  many 
good  souls  imagine,  by  an  impassable  barrier, 
there  is  really  no  possibility   of  drawing  a  line 


GENIUS  AXD   TALENT.  817 

between  tlie  dull  people,  the  sensible  people,  the 
intelligent  people,  the  clever  people,  the  people  of 
talent,  unci  the  regular  geniuses.  From  top  to 
bottom  the  scale  of  ability  gr.cs  on  gradually  by 
infinitesimal  gradations,  and  there  is  nothing,  in 
the  last  resort,  to  mark  the  very  greatest  men  and 
women  from  those  just  beneath  them  in  the  intel- 
lectual scale,  except  perhaijs  a  rather  greater 
amount  of  painstaking  attention.  Granting  this 
—  and  all  example  shows  it  to  be  true  —  it  is 
quite  possible  for  every  one  of  us  to  raise  our- 
selves several  grades  higher  in  the  scale  by  the 
simple  process  of  taking  more  trouble  with  every- 
thing we  do.  Of  course  it  is  possible  that  we 
may,  some  of  us,  have  already  reached  the  stand- 
ard of  absolute  perfection  in  this  respect ;  we  may 
do  with  our  might  whatever  our  hand  findeth  to 
do,  according  to  the  beautiful  Scriptural  adjunv- 
tion  ;  but  such  models  of  attention  must  indeed 
be  few  and  far  between,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  in  most  cases  a  trifle  more  of  applica. 
tion,  no  matter  to  what  end  directed,  —  business, 
instruction,  handicraft,  the  common  affairs  of 
every-day  life,  —  would  sooner  or  later  bring  forth 
good  fruit,  and  raise  us  by  so  much  in  the  scale 
of  being.  We  are  all  very  largely  what  we  are 
born  to  be ;  but  we  are  also  very  largely  what  we 
choose  to  make  ourselves.  People  who  think  too 
much  of  the  first  clause  in  this  natural  antithesis 


518  OK\WS  AND  TALENT. 


are  apt  to  st.ck  j„8t  where  nature  a„d  circum- 
Btances  or.gn.ally  placed  tl.em,  people  „ho  lly 
reeog„,ze  the  truth  of  the  second  clause  are  likely 
o  me  to  the  highest  positions  for  which  their 
natural  endowments  in  my  way  fit  them 


